Founding In 1925, Bishop
James Hartley purchased a house and 77 acres of land which had formerly belonged to Martha Green Deshler, daughter of the prominent Columbus businessman
John G. Deshler who owned the
Deshler Hotel and financed the building of the
Wyandotte Building, the first skyscraper in Columbus. Green Deshler and her husband, Harry W. Brown, settled at the farmhouse following their marriage, and Green died at the house in September of 1925. It served as a home for devotional exercises and Sunday
Masses from 1925 to 1926, and the site was entrusted to the care of the
Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity, on August 28, 1927, and remained so until 1971.
Improvements A
Romanesque chapel with a capacity for 120 congregants dedicated to St. Therese, along with a 32-room dormitory for retreat participants and other buildings designed by Robert Krause, was constructed in 1931 and dedicated on the feast of St. Therese by Bishop Hartley. The new wing and other additions were formally dedicated in the fall of the same year. The chapel was the site of celebrations of the
Tridentine Mass in the 1990s. In 1998, 18 of the original 75 acres were split off to be developed into a senior
assisted living facility run by the
Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm. It also hosted a three-day gathering of Catholics and
Sikhs sponsored by the
USCCB in May 2014. The same year, the
grotto dedicated to
Our Lady of Lourdes on the grounds of the facility was rebuilt and restored. In 2020, citing declining use, the Diocese of Columbus closed the retreat center, but in October of 2022, it began to serve as temporary housing for a new order of
religious sisters serving in the Diocese. == References ==