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 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 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."