From Convent To Chic Retreat: Inside OTJ Architects’s Historic Hotel Conversion

Visitation Hotel Frederick, Maryland

Habited nuns and white-socked schoolgirls once traipsed the halls of this 1820’s Catholic convent and academy. Now, it’s a 65-key boutique hotel where guests can dine on steak and wine in the deconsecrated chapel. Wye Oak Tavern is said restaurant, a modern American venue by celebrity chefs and Frederick, Maryland, natives Bryan and Michael Voltaggio, and its restored shell is a sight to behold—tuned to perfection by OTJ Architects with the help of church officials and historians. The original marble altar, featuring statues of kneeling angels, was reimagined as a bar surveyed by soaring, painstakingly preserved stained-glass windows. In what was once the nave, dining banquettes recall pews, and tubular brass-finished chandeliers allude to the balcony’s untouched pipe organ. Guest rooms and communal lounges convey a sense of restrained luxury aligned with the strict austerity of the original convent and schoolhouse, but with a cosseting twist. Of note are the more than 250 objects uncovered during the renovation, such as a 19th-century green-glass medicine bottle, displayed throughout for guests to enjoy. For those who would like to stay long-term, the redbrick complex also houses 25 condominiums ranging from 1,500 to 2,500 square feet, all single-level and conceived to appeal to empty nesters.

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