The Literary Hotel repurposes historic St. Mary’s building with new opening

SOLON — A historic Solon building is starting a new chapter through its reopening as The Literary Hotel. Soon, the owners hope it will bring new life to Solon.

The 1915 building, built by Saint Mary’s Catholic Church as the St. Mary’s Catholic Auditorium, Literary and Social Club, reopened as a hotel in August.

With 11 hotel rooms, 10 apartments, retail and event space, the owners extensive renovation endeavor has brought a new chapter to the building previously known as the center of Solon social life.

The history

“In the late 1800s, the Mississippi River was the dividing line. People east of the Mississippi River were considered cultured, intelligent, classy people,” said Al Wells, co-owner and managing partner. “West of the Mississippi, you were considered uncultured.”

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As opera houses popped up across Iowa, Missouri and other states, St. Mary’s Catholic Church built the remarkable building to become a multipurpose cultural center for parishioners and visitors alike.

With a scale and architectural detail remarkable for its World War I era, the building was more than an extension of the church that served as a mission of St. Mary’s in Iowa City. As the church grew in a community of about 450, so did this building’s draw for residents on then-robust rail lines between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, in addition to Solon residents.

“It really is an iconic structure for Solon,” said Cedar Rapids historian Mark Stoffer Hunter. “It was an elaborately beautiful structure for that time.”

The outside, still intact with original brick work and tuckpointing, features the original “Literary and Social” inscription in the front, as well as graduated roof work that elevates the building’s presence even more.

With a size similar to the The Englert Theatre in Iowa City and the World Theater in Cedar Rapids — all built around the same time — the space lived as a buffer between commercial and residential areas of Solon. It featured a bowling alley on the main floor, classrooms for catechism, and a two-story auditorium complete with a balcony projector booth for films, plays and cultural programs.

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“They really gave the community of Solon a remarkable opportunity to have this auditorium and social club,” said Stoffer Hunter. “It really was a statement building for Solon, in addition to being a statement building for the Catholic Church. It wasn’t just for them, it was for the entire Solon community.”

The stature of the building and it’s place in life for residents of that time also spoke to the growing power of the Catholic Church getting a foothold in the area with an influx of Eastern European immigrants.

Its modern transformation

The building today — the product of a $2.9 million endeavor — leans into the history with a balance of modern aesthetics that honors the building’s original aesthetic.

“It’s like a place that time forgot,” said Al Wells, who purchased it in 2017. “We started with the exposed brick walls and the exposed pipes where they were already at.”

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With no structural work necessary, the new owners removed plaster from walls to expose the original bricks in their full glory. Two new floors were added to construct 10 apartments on the highest fourth floor, where original trusses remain an integral part of each residence.

Pipes were painted black, and white walls outline a crisp, clean theme that juxtaposes modern decor over the historic space’s original wood floors. Large windows bring even more light to the crevices between bricks, and Edison-style light bulbs accent each space of the hotels king, double queen and larger suite rooms.

Some doorways, guests will notice, use the same brick arches that would have been used to enter the stage when the floor was a theater.

“It’s the details that people love,” Wells said. “It’s different, it’s small, it’s custom.”

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The building, now 20,000 square feet, has about 5,000 more square feet of usable space than it did before.

How it happened

Since 2013, Al Wells has owned Palmer House Stable, a wedding venue in Solon prompted by an unsolicited inquiry.

“In 2013, Solon was dead. Tumbleweeds were going down Main Street,” he said.

But that year, a couple proposed their wedding for his space. Since then, he’s done 345 weddings and has attained a reputation as a leader welcoming same-sex couples in Eastern Iowa.

But for hundreds of weddings, the boutique wedding space owner had no hotel to send guests to in Solon.

The former St. Mary’s building, active until the 1990s but vacant for most of the 21st century, is now the only hotel in Solon. The distinction of first goes to the Palmer House Hotel, started by the same man who established the Palmer House Stable.

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Now, the Literary Hotel offers boutique hotel accommodations to match a boutique wedding space. But what’s more is that by complementing the boutiques, shops, restaurants, bakery and brewery in town, the small hotel stands to make Solon something more than a rural town in Johnson County.

“We are becoming a destination. I’m promoting Solon and Lake Macbride as a destination, and it all starts with The Literary Hotel,” said Wells.

With a draw from parents bringing their children to college at Eastern Iowa colleges, visitors are starting to recognize Solon as a destination in its own right, made possible by the only hotel in Solon. Wells said Chicago guests often compare their stay to the charm of Galena, Illinois.

“I’m just thrilled by what it’s been converted into,” said Stoffer Hunter. “The repurposing of it is a great example of use for a historic structure.”

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.