LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A 144-year-old church in Louisville's NuLu district could soon be home to a bourbon tasting room, art museum and live music venue.

"The Last Refuge" will be a brand center for music legend Bob Dylan's Heaven's Door Spirits, complete with a whiskey bar and restaurant, two-story art gallery and live music space.

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"We walked the space and fell in love with it," said Marc Bushala, president and CEO of Heaven's Door Spirits.

That space is an old church at East Market and Hancock streets built in 1879. At different times, it's been home to The Refuge in Kentucky Church and the Market Street United Methodist Church. Previous plans for the site called for Weyland Ventures to open a cajun restaurant and entertainment complex called Churchkey, but they never materialized.

"The name of the church basketball team was Last Refuge," Bushala said. "So, as a tribute to that, the name of our bar will be The Last Refuge."

Attached to the back of the church is an old gymnasium with a raised walking track, an area that, as part of Phase 1, will be transformed into a whiskey bar and restaurant "with the largest selections of American whiskey anywhere," Heaven's Door said.

"This is really going to be the high church of bourbon," Bushala said.

Phase 2 will be focus on Dylan’s other talent: his art.

Heaven's Door's website describes Dylan as a "restless artist," and a handful of his paintings and sculptures are displayed in Heaven's Door locations. So next door to the church — at 610 E. Market St. — the group also purchased the Zephyr Gallery, which it will use to house a 14,000-square-foot art gallery along with administrative office space. The art installation will be similar to Dylan's art displays in London, Shanghai and Miami, and will also feature the works of a rotating group of other artists.

Zephyr Gallery Building

The group purchased the Zephyr Gallery, which it will use to house a 14,000-square-foot art gallery along with administrative office space. March 21, 2023. (WDRB Photo)

"Bob has a lot to say about what this looks and feels like, what it is called (and) the kind of art that is being displayed," Bushala said. "We are taking a lot of cues from what they have created already."

Heaven's Door, which soon plans to open a new 160-acre distillery in Pleasureville, Kentucky, boasts three static bottles: a Straight Bourbon, a six-year Double Barrel whiskey and a Straight Rye.

Plans for the old sanctuary on East Market Street call for a retail store and a vinyl listening room — including a coffee and tea bar — on the first floor and a live music space on the second floor. A courtyard on the east side of the church will also be used for private events and outdoor guest seating.

"It's really going to be something different, and that is a building that hasn't been in use for so long," said Katie Meinhart, president of the NuLu Business Association. "Why not put something amazing like that in there?"

But The Last Refuge is not the only thing front and center when it comes to economic development in NuLu. 

There are currently more than $300 million in projects in the works in the area, including plans to turn the former Joe Ley Antiques site into a hotel, an expansion to Rabbit Hole Distillery on East Jefferson Street and several others. A $78 million project was announced in 2021 on a 2-acre plot between South Clay and South Shelby streets. Called NuLu Crossing, it will have 284 residential units and include a grocery store as part of 85,500 square feet of commercial space.

"You don't want too many apartment complexes next to each other (and) you don't want too many hotels next to each other, but at the same time, when you are creating a new market like NuLu, you really need a critical mass of supply in order for the neighborhood to be successful," said Nick Campisano, founder and CEO of Zyyo and the real estate developer behind NuLu Crossing.

And Texas-based Bunkhouse Group plans to open the 122-room, $31 million Hotel Genevieve this spring at 730 E. Market St. The hotel is expected to open before the Kentucky Derby.

"When NuLu is fully stabilized and there are a lot of these new amenities such as additional hotels, multi-family complexes that are nice to rent and other shopping venues, you should have a lot of the urban amenities that are available in places like Nashville, but you're in Louisville, which is a wonderful place to be," Campisano said. "So we're really excited about what NuLu will offer Louisville. It has a lot of the same great attributes that Louisville already has, but it has a blank canvas in other way where you can have history on one side and a new beginning on another."

The first phase of Heaven’s Door Last Refuge is set to open in September.

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