The Washington School House Hotel touts itself as a 12-room luxury boutique hotel built on .3 acres, or five oversized lots, on Park Avenue in Old Town. It’s for sale for $31 million.
The 11,763-square-foot property was originally a schoolhouse built in 1889 and named after George Washington. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the official list of the United States’ historic structures worthy of preservation, in 1978 as it’s one of the last surviving original schoolhouses in the country. It’s also one of the few remaining buildings that survived Park City’s Great Fire of 1898, although it did nearly go up in flames.
Gretchen Hudgens is an agent representing the property. She said the current owner, Marcy Holthus, also the CEO of Pilot Hotels, purchased the property in 2009. Hudgens said Holthus and her family originally intended to restore the building into a home, but decided they couldn’t keep the “stunning gem” to themselves.
“They kind of became accidental hoteliers and have done such a fabulous job with it,” Hudgens said.
Holthus and her team took the schoolhouse down to the studs for renovations. Hudgens said they then hand-picked pieces to furnish the hotel.
“Most of the furnishings are beautiful antique furnishings from Europe that the owners hand curated, brought over. There's a magnificent mirror in the great room that sits over this ornate, beautiful white marble fireplace and that was restored from an opera house in Paris,” she said. “Everything has been very lovingly and carefully selected to make it what it is.”
The hotel features the building's original quarried limestone exterior and 16-foot ceilings. There is also a historic living room, ski lounge, detached two-car garage and heated pool terraced into the hillside.
Hudgens said the property will come largely furnished. It can continue operating as an award-winning luxury boutique hotel or be turned into a single-family home.
“The architect that did all of the design work for the current owner has stated that he would be willing to do the design work for a single-family home, and it would be a fairly easy conversion,” Hudgens said. “The biggest thing with that is changing out the kitchen. Obviously, right now it's a commercial, kind of industrial-looking kitchen and making that something that's more inviting.”
The property was listed for sale Tuesday and will continue to operate as normal. It is still accepting new reservations.
