Baltimore’s New Ulysses Hotel Channels the Kaleidoscopic Ouevre of Filmmaker John Waters

New York interior design and development firm Ash has gotten a lot of attention for its bold, site-specific hotels in Providence, Detroit, and New Orleans that put the more standardized interiors and amenities of Hiltons and Hyatts to shame. "All of our projects begin with me exploring a city or neighborhood that has somehow caught my attention," says Ari S. Heckman, CEO of Ash. "It could be a tip from a friend or something I read. I like places that exist slightly under the radar or that might be considered unusual." 

Alongside his fellow Ash partners, cofounder Jonathan Minkoff and Will Cooper, Heckman works with the firm’s in-house design team to imbue each of their hotels with elements that pull from a wide range of relevant cultural and geographic sources. As such, Ash’s latest hotel venture, Ulysses, incorporates idiosyncratic design accents that hint at Baltimore’s maritime past, emphasize the existing Italian Renaissance–style flourishes of the 1912 building it occupies, and pay tribute to the colorful oeuvre of the city’s cultural godfather, filmmaker John Waters (of cult classics like Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, and Cry Baby). 

Located in the city’s upmarket Mount Vernon neighborhood and across the street from the country’s first Washington Monument, the nine-floor Latrobe Building, designed by architects Glidden & Friz, originally operated as a boarding house for wealthy bachelors. In the 1980s, the building was converted into an office block but was vacant by the early 2000s. "It had a beautiful facade," says Heckman. "It was grand but needed a new purpose. It had an ideal layout for a hotel with windows on all four sides. We won the building at an online auction in 2018 and immediately got to work."  

As with the firm’s other properties, Ash’s goal was to create an environment that seamlessly wove into the fabric of its neighborhood. The team wanted the hotel to become a quasi-living room for the surrounding area that could foster cultural exchange between visitors and residents, which is what Heckman believes is the essence of travel. "The first place my head went when I knew we were going to be doing this hotel was ‘Good Morning, Baltimore,’ as sung by Tracy Turnblad and played by Ricki Lake in Waters’s 1988 film, Hairspray," says Cooper, Ash’s chief creative officer. "The song narrates an interesting point of view on Baltimore in the 1960s, and even 1988 when he made the film, commenting on what it’s like to burst out of a small town and be seen on a bigger stage, tackling heavy issues like racism, and more generally, just fitting in."  

Transforming the property into a 116-room hotel with an all-day bistro and late-night cocktail lounge was no cakewalk, however. It was particularly difficult for the Ash team to work around the structure’s thick masonry cladding and to install new electrical wiring within its plaster walls. "The central challenge was how to pack a lot of a program into an existing building and find space for all of the modern ‘behind-the-wall’ infrastructure to create the density of rooms, bars, and restaurants," says Heckman. The original elevators were too small to meet contemporary code, so entirely new shaftways were constructed from within.

Because the building was thoroughly gutted when it was converted into an office block in the ’80s, few historic design elements remained. "We found relics behind ceilings, like the stained glass skylight on the ninth floor, but we also had to create a narrative and design interiors that felt like they could have always been there," Heckman adds. "Imagining and bringing it back to what it may have been like in 1912 was an uphill battle."

The team preserved architectural features such as a limestone frieze depicting Villa Boscotrecase in ancient Pompeii and the plaster columns that greet guests at the entrance. They introduced a streamlined modern-style handrail fabricated by local practice Magma Build Studios that looks like it could have been made in the 1920s or ’30s. 

An Italian marble mosaic floor welcomes visitors up from the street-level entry to a mezzanine lobby, where Viennese wood floors extend to the cruise ship–like, Art Deco–inspired restaurant, Ash Bar. Burl wood paneling wraps the sophisticated eatery’s walls, complete with curved molding. The synthetic veneer was even used to coat built-in window blinds, which, when closed, create a seamless, crystalline look.

In the guest rooms, furniture and other decorative elements are also rendered in this emphatically kitsch yet visually striking finish. Cooper describes the Etruscan flowerpot vanity mirrors in the bathrooms, for example, as "at once trashy and sublime." Other textural details include four-poster beds outfitted with scalloped canopies and handmade patterned quilts inspired by Baltimore Album Quilts, as well as hand-beaded lampshades, hand-glazed tiles from India, and an occasional flamingo motif (an homage to Waters). While eclectic in use of pattern and texture, each guest room is tied together by a unifying color scheme, such as moody green or pale aubergine. A distinct blue—denoting the Ulysses brand—can be found on everything from matchboxes to stationery and umbrellas.

Much like its elaborate interior, the hotel’s moniker, Ulysses, derives from a diverse range of references, too—everything from the name of a vessel with Bavarian immigrants that sailed into Baltimore’s harbor in 1828, to the Latin name for Odysseus, the legendary Greek king and hero of Homer’s epic poem, as well as the title of a famed James Joyce novel that brought to light stream of consciousness storytelling in modern literature. "The hotel’s design is indeed a stream of consciousness," says Cooper.

"It’s an interplay between our obsession with cities, our passion for participating in the betterment of urban neighborhoods, and our love of culture and history—both local and global," Heckman adds. "As hoteliers, we are focused on creating the stage where performances happen every minute of every day, in public and behind closed doors." 

Top photo by Brett Wood.

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