Jason Bryant, from left, James Karlo and Museum Service President Russell Belk, prepare to install a restored painting inside the newly-renovated Celeste St. Paul Hotel + Bar on Monday, Oct. 21, 2019. The paintings, which took on average 40 to 100 hours to restore, were painted by Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, the order which occupied the building and ran the Conservatory of Music and Arts there from 1910 until the early 1960Õs when the school/convent closed. (Jack Rodgers / Pioneer Press)

Carl Deeken, left, and Todd Byhre look at restored paintings inside the newly-renovated Celeste St. Paul Hotel + Bar on Monday, Oct. 21, 2019. Deeken is the general manager of the new boutique hotel, and Byhre is the chief operating officer of its owner, Rebound Hospitality of Northfield, Minn.The paintings, which took on average 40 to 100 hours to restore, were painted by Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, the order which occupied the building and ran the Conservatory of Music and Arts there from 1910 until the early 1960Õs when the school/convent closed. Restoration efforts revealed previously unseen details, such as the flowers in the portrait at right. (Jack Rodgers / Pioneer Press)

James Karlo prepares to install a restored painting inside the newly renovated Celeste St. Paul Hotel + Bar on Monday, Oct. 21, 2019. The paintings, which took on average 40 to 100 hours to restore, were painted by Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, the order which occupied the building and ran the Conservatory of Music and Arts there from 1910 until the early 1960Õs when the school/convent closed. (Jack Rodgers / Pioneer Press)

Jason Bryant measures as restored paintings are installed inside the newly-renovated Celeste St. Paul Hotel + Bar on Monday, Oct. 21, 2019. The paintings, which took on average 40 to 100 hours to restore, were painted by Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, the order which occupied the building and ran the Conservatory of Music and Arts there from 1910 until the early 1960Õs when the school/convent closed. (Jack Rodgers / Pioneer Press)

James Karlo, left, and Jason Bryant prepare to install a restored painting inside the newly-renovated Celeste St. Paul Hotel + Bar on Monday, Oct. 21, 2019. The paintings, which took on average 40 to 100 hours to restore, were painted by Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, the order which occupied the building and ran the Conservatory of Music and Arts there from 1910 until the early 1960Õs when the school/convent closed. (Jack Rodgers / Pioneer Press)



Jason Bryant, from left, James Karlo and Museum Service President Russell Belk, prepare to install a restored painting inside the newly-renovated Celeste St. Paul Hotel + Bar on Monday, Oct. 21, 2019. The paintings, which took on average 40 to 100 hours to restore, were painted by Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, the order which occupied the building and ran the Conservatory of Music and Arts there from 1910 until the early 1960Õs when the school/convent closed. (Jack Rodgers / Pioneer Press)

The outside of the newly renovated Celeste St. Paul Hotel + Bar, formerly the Exchange Building and St. Agatha’s Conservatory of Music and Arts, is seen on Monday, Oct. 21, 2019. (Jack Rodgers / Pioneer Press)

Celeste St. Paul Hotel + Bar, set to open Nov. 1, is paying tribute to the building’s past by returning original paintings from the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet to its walls.

The new boutique hotel in the historic Exchange Building in downtown St. Paul has been undergoing renovation and restoration for the past year. The building, named to the Register of Historic Places in 1989, formerly housed St. Agatha’s Conservatory of Music and Arts, a Roman Catholic convent and Minnesota’s first fine arts school.

The Celeste commissioned Museum Services of Minneapolis to remove, clean and restore the original paintings during work on the property at 26 E. Exchange St.

The five large oil paintings were done by the Catholic nuns who occupied the building and operated the conservatory from 1910 until the school’s closure in the early 1960s. The extensive cleaning and restoration process uncovered hidden details and took 45 to 100 hours for each painting.

Most of the paintings feature religious scenes. According to the hotel, one 72-by-60-inch painting, titled “The Annunciation,” is attributed to Sister Anysia Keating, who joined the convent at the age of 23 in 1884.

She was one of a handful of sisters selected by superiors to study fine art in Europe from 1908 to 1910. Keating studied under masters at major museums in Florence, Milan, Naples, Rome, Venice, Munich and Paris, said a paper published by the Ramsey Historical Society. Based on the signature inscribed on “The Annunciation,” the painting was done in Florence, Italy, between Aug. 9 and Oct. 19, 1909.

Keating later became a founding faculty member at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul.

The new boutique hotel by Northfield, Minn.-based Rebound Hospitality will feature 71 rooms for guests as well as meeting rooms, a fitness center and a bar in the conservatory’s former parlor space.

The Beaux-Arts-style building has seen several uses since the convent and school closed in 1962. In more recent years, the space had been used by a law office and the now-defunct McNally Smith College of Music.

The Celeste is named after the convent’s first Mother Superior Ellen Howard, or Mother Celestine.