‘Incredible serendipity.’ How Bob Dylan’s Heaven’s Door brand center landed on Louisville

Walking down Market Street last year in NuLu, Marc Bushala was struck by a towering red-bricked church enclosed by chain link fencing.

Bushala, CEO and co-founder of Heaven’s Door Spirits, was visiting Louisville twice a month as he worked on launching a distillery and visitor center 45 miles east of the city in Pleasureville, Kentucky.

At the same time, the company — co-founded by singing-songwriting legend Bob Dylan — had plans to open a “brand center” in Nashville in a 160-year-old church.

Bushala wasn’t in the market for another property. But this church got him thinking.

"We love that property, and we love Nashville," Bushala said. "But it makes sense to keep our brand experience and our distillery in the same market."

He reached out to the building’s owners, Louisville developer Weyland Ventures, and learned the NuLu church was available.

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Discussions led to a long-term lease with an option to purchase, Bushala said, charting a new path for the Heaven's Door experience.

Set to open in September, the brand center at 600 E. Market St., called The Last Refuge, will include a restaurant, whiskey bar and live music venue housed within the former Refuge of Kentucky Church.

Heaven’s Door has also bought the property to the east of the church, the former Zephyr Gallery, and has plans to build a 15,000-square-foot building to house an immersive art experience that will feature Dylan’s paintings and metalworks (like those seen on Heaven’s Door’s bottles) as well as other artists’ creations.

"I’m excited that what we’re doing is different than what exists in terms of brand experiences for distilleries," he said. "They all have their own spin, but more or less those component pieces are kind of the same."

Lee Weyland, partner at CORE Real Estate, helped close the lease deal with Heaven’s Door.

"It was somewhat fortuitous," Weyland said of the partnership. "It came together quickly. We’re thrilled that they’re going to activate the space and breathe new life into that corridor."

What to expect from the new Heaven's Door brand center

The idea for the brand center’s name, the Last Refuge, was sparked in the old gymnasium of the former church.

Standing on the basketball court, Bushala was asked if he’d picked a name. He had not, but the words "refuge in Kentucky" were painted on the wooden floor.

"We thought Last Refuge sounds like a great name for a whiskey bar, especially one that's in a former church," he said.

That gymnasium building connected to the south end of the main church will be home to the restaurant and whiskey bar.

The plan is to carry spirits not only with the Heaven’s Door label but offer one of the largest selections of American whiskeys in the country, said Bushala, who has worked in the industry for decades, co-founding Angel's Envy in 2011.

"We’re in a fortunate position that we’ve got the old church gymnasium with 25-foot-high ceilings, so we can have this incredible back bar that will have as many bottles as we can possibly fit on there," he said.

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Design plans call for incorporating part of the church’s organ as part of the back bar display.

In the main church building that faces Market Street, the first-floor assembly hall will be converted to a retail space and a vinyl listening room. The second floor, the sanctuary, is slated to become a live performance space.

“The acoustics of the church and the room itself are quite special,” Bushala said.

Readying the church for its next chapter as an event space

The Heaven's Door project is the latest in a blitz of investment in the East Market District, more commonly referred to as NuLu.

Close to the church, the former Joe Ley Antiques building is set to be transformed into a hotel. Across the street sits the new Gateway to NuLu office building. Within blocks, the Hotel Genevieve boutique hotel has recently opened its doors, the massive mixed-use NuLu Crossing is in development and a Tempo by Hilton is set to open later this year. That's not to mention the slew of new restaurants and small shops that have opened in recent years.

The former Market Street United Methodist Church, meanwhile, has stood on the corner of Market and Hancock streets since 1879. It originally served a German-American congregation and offered services in German until anti-German sentiment during World War I ended the practice, according to Courier Journal archives.

The congregation put the building up for sale in 1990, citing dwindling membership. It was then home to the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith Inc. for more than 20 years.

Weyland Ventures bought the property from the church in 2018 for $800,000.

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"For us, we were attracted to that property because it’s an iconic corner property that we see as the gateway to NuLu from downtown," Weyland said.

While the former church occupant was "a great steward of the property," he said, there was some deferred maintenance and updates were needed.

He declined to share the investment in those improvements but said they included stabilizing the building, adding new roofing, and updating the HVAC and electrical systems.

These upgrades were made with a different tenant but a similar purpose in mind. The Courier Journal previously reported that a sports bar, restaurant and entertainment complex was planned.

Having an older building with improvements already made that was available was "incredible serendipity," Bushala said.

“A lot of fortuitous events conspired to make this happen,” he said.

Work will continue over the spring and summer to ready the buildings for a September debut.

The planned 14,000-square-foot new construction gallery building next door should follow in short order, subject to city approval.

An outdoor courtyard will connect both buildings and provide outdoor seating.

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This art center will show a wide variety of Dylan’s visual artwork using immersive and interactive displays. It’ll also feature other artists, host private events as well as live performances, movie screenings and art classes. A partial third floor could be home to an artist-in-residence program.

“The art experience is completely different that anything that exists,” Bushala said. “We think that’ll be an interesting tourist attraction in its own right.”

Meanwhile, the Nashville church property is set to become the headquarters of the company’s arts-focused philanthropic arm, The Heaven’s Door Foundation.

Bushala said the plans for NuLu are a realization of a vision he’s had since co-founding Heaven’s Door in 2015, alongside Dylan and in collaboration with his Chicago-based Spirits Investment Partners.

And while he said it likely would have opened in Nashville a few years ago were it not for the pandemic, he thinks the delay may have been a "blessing in disguise."

Now, the craft whiskey distillery, with its visitor’s center, tasting rooms, and lounges on a 160-acre property in Pleasureville, is set to open around the same time as the NuLu experience.

"I’m kind of thankful that’s where we ended up," he said, adding that a Dylan song, "Simple Twist of Fate," comes to his mind when thinking about the project.

"I think this can be considered just that."

Business reporter Matthew Glowicki can be reached at mglowicki@courier-journal.com, 502-582-4000 or on Twitter @mattglo. 

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Bob Dylan’s Heaven’s Door bourbon brand center to open in Louisville