Visitation Resort. Picture courtesy of Trent Bell.
A brand new boutique lodge with fairly a historical past is opening this week in Frederick, Maryland. Visitation Resort, a Marriott Tribute property, is housed in a circa 1846 constructing that was initially an all-girls Catholic college, Visitation Academy. It was additionally a convent: Nuns lived on the property till 2005, the yr it was become a personal college; that closed in June 2016.
Architect Lance Jaccard, co-CEO of OTJ Architects, says they labored throughout the aesthetic of the historic buildings—there’s additionally a chapel that dates to 1851—when designing the lodge in order that the backstory could be a part of the visitor expertise. For instance, the chapel, which is now a restaurant from Prime Chef contestant Bryan Voltaggio, options confession box-patterned privateness screens, an altar behind the bar with sculptures of angels, and a still-functional organ in its mezzanine. On the lodge room doorknobs, “Do Not Disturb” indicators dangle from rosary beads. The rooms will even embody memorabilia from former college students—some 1,200 artifacts in all. In a single room, company will discover a fragment from an 1870s parasol {that a} younger woman would have introduced in her trunk, alongside along with her medication bottle, tea service, and a plate. Notes will inform guests about every artifact.
Developer Jim O’Hare of O2 Holdings/Lafayette Monetary focuses on historic preservation. He was launched to Visitation Academy earlier than it closed by Frederick financial growth director Richard Griffin, who needed Frederick to have a historic lodge like one other that O’Hare had developed, the Resort Rodney in Delaware. “The historical past of the constructing and its prior use as a convent and college make the property distinctive,” O’Hare says. “We are able to use the preserved house not solely to supply stunning lodge rooms, a bar, and restaurant, but in addition to inform the tales of the nuns who lived and the women who studied there.”
Between the time that the varsity closed and O’Hare and Jaccard grew to become companions on the Frederick undertaking, the consensus amongst locals in Frederick was “Oh, what a disgrace. Right here is that this unbelievable historic construction that’s decaying,” Jaccard says. O’Hare and Jaccard made a bid in 2017. Although initially unsuccessful, they secured the property when the unique purchaser backed out. The pair labored to get historic tax credit with the Maryland Historic Belief and Nationwide Park Service, and modifications authorized with town of Frederick’s Historic Preservation Fee.
They started with upkeep and exterior restoration and renovation. (First activity: mowing lawns that had been left unattended.) Building was delayed two years by the Covid pandemic; it started in earnest in March 2022. Then a fireplace after a mass on the close by St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in April 2023 delayed the opening one other yr. The lodge is lastly opening this week, on December 19.
The lodge has 65 visitor rooms, together with 9 extended-stay choices. Assembly areas on-site can accommodate 10 to 12 folks. Three separate buildings with condominium items are additionally underneath building, with one accomplished and two in progress.
A bigger occasion venue—the place the varsity had its auditorium and which was used as a hospital through the Civil Battle—is offered for rental as a ballroom, together with wedding ceremony receptions. You’ll be able to nonetheless see red-brickwork particulars that pre-existed within the house.
Exterior, company are inspired to stroll by means of the backyard, which incorporates Joseph and Mary statues (and through Christmastime, a Christmas tree). The outside house can host 150 folks for occasions. The eeriest contact is the cemetery, which homes the graves of 125 nuns, their names inscribed on metallic nameplates.
All through the property, QR codes will hyperlink to tales in regards to the 125 nuns buried on-site, together with how the nuns baked apple dumplings to entice college students to come back to class, resulting in an annual “Apple Dumpling Day” in Frederick. (Chef Bryan Voltaggio’s will embody apple dumplings on the restaurant, Wye Oak Tavern.)
The restaurant’s decor options trendy, brass-detailed chandeliers, cubicles with black and walnut element, and wine racks by a Frederick mill and workshop. Native distributors had been used for all the undertaking, together with Jay Jeffrey’s woodworking, stone and metallic firm Lumber JaKKSS, and artist Jennifer Elveton’s ArtistAngle Gallery of Frederick, who equipped the frames for regionally sourced work.
Frederick has turn out to be a restaurant vacation spot, with eating places comparable to Volt (now Thacher & Rye), The Abnormal Hen, The Tasting Room, and The Wine Kitchen. What had been lacking is a downtown lodge, O’Hare says, because the Francis Scott Key Resort closed in 1975.
“Visitation Resort will fill that void,” he says. “After we first toured Visitation, it was a constructing that was going to die from neglect and demolition. We noticed the potential for a lodge but in addition to protect and restore Visitation, the historical past of the buildings, the convent, and the varsity. Now, we’re part of that residing historical past.”
