Just off of North Main Street, climbing up the hill between Eighth and Ninth Streets, the Roman Catholic congregation of Saint Raymond Parish established a dominant presence in the Summit neighborhood. First in the 1920’s with the construction of the convent (29 Ninth Street), then a boys and girls school (Highland Ave), and finally a rectory in the 1950’s (18 Eighth Street). The Diocese eventually sold the buildings off to be operated as group homes and a charter school. In 2020, our client purchased and converted the rectory into eighteen apartments as the first phase of the project. The operators of the group home sold the convent building to our client knowing the building would be in good hands after seeing the conversion of the Rectory.

The convent is the oldest of the remaining St Raymond parish buildings and was converted to 11 one-bedroom apartments. The building was built in the Gothic Revival style with a brick exterior with cast concrete details. The exterior masonry was cleaned and all openings were preserved. Large single pane windows replace the earlier aluminum replacement windows. The grade at the south and west sides of the building was lowered to create garden level entries to the former basement. Two shed dormers on the hipped roof increase the ceiling height of the third floor and create a contemporary design element expressing the building’s transformation.

Many of the historic interior details were very much still intact. The masonry exterior walls, concrete floors, and steel frame structure made the building very resistant to change and it was decided early on that the historic room arrangement would be preserved wherever possible, but to make the building function efficiently as apartments, some major changes were required including removing the center hallway. The original first floor included a chapel, kitchen, and dining hall. The original second floor included many small and narrow sleeping cells for the nuns (7’-8” wide and equipped with a sink and small closet) and the Mother Superior’s room with a private porch. The original third floor had three small sleeping rooms with small dormers and low ceilings under the hipped roof.

The design approach celebrates the history of the buildings used while creating modern and bright apartments. Each apartment has its own unique layout to take best advantage of the historic details that were able to be saved in each space. Preserved details include wood trim and paneling, flared plaster window openings with ornate rounded wood trim, exterior covered porches, arched plaster openings, and original fir wood floors. Where walls were removed, but the original wood floors were patched to show where the original walls were located.

New contemporary kitchens with walnut and black cabinetry were designed to be distinct design elements set within the original historic fabric. Black panels alcoves were created where new openings are made through original plaster walls.