McMenamins Old St. Francis School

A 1936 Catholic schoolhouse converted by McMenamins — nineteen rooms, an on-site brewery, multiple bars, and a Turkish-style soaking pool. Old St. Francis School is the Bend, Oregon outpost of McMenamins' very specific approach to historic-building reuse: take a property the city would otherwise lose, fix it, fill it with art and a brewery, and run it as a hotel-pub-public-house hybrid that the locals actually use.

The result is more pub-with-rooms than hotel-with-bar. The whole campus is open to the public — multiple bars, the soaking pool, the brewery, the grounds — and guests are mixed in with the Bend regulars who come for the pints. McMenamins is a small Pacific Northwest group (roughly five flagship larger properties) that lehotelist counts as inside its independent-hotel scope.

The setting

Bend sits in central Oregon, three hours from Portland over the Cascades, in the high-desert pine-and-volcanic-cone country east of the range. Old St. Francis is in downtown Bend, walking distance to Drake Park, the Old Mill District, and the Mirror Pond stretch of the Deschutes River.

Drake Park and the river are two minutes' walk. The Old Mill District is fifteen minutes' walk south. Mt. Bachelor (skiing in winter, hiking in summer) is twenty-five minutes west. Smith Rock State Park (the destination climbing area) is thirty minutes north. Lava Lands and the Newberry Volcanic National Monument are thirty minutes south.

The building

A 1936 Catholic school — three stories of brick, with the kind of institutional civic architecture pre-war Oregon built. McMenamins kept the schoolhouse bones (wide stairs, tall windows, central hallways) and converted the rooms while threading in their signature program: bars, art, hidden details. The brewery was added in a separate building on the property.

Materials are brick outside, plaster, hardwood, and the kind of theatrical-bohemian decorative layer (murals, painted ceilings, salvaged fixtures, brass) that's the McMenamins house style. The aesthetic is upscale-bohemian-meets-Neo-Victoriana applied with conviction.

The rooms

Nineteen rooms across the schoolhouse's floors. Categories are simple — most are individually configured and named, often with thematic art and quirks. Bathrooms are private. Beds are good. The rooms are characterful, not minimalist.

Rates from $245 in shoulder.

Food & drink

The on-site brewery (Old St. Francis Brewery) and the multiple bars are the property's social anchor. Several bars across the campus serve different rooms — some live music, some quiet, all open to the public. Food options run from casual brewpub to a more conventional restaurant. Open to non-guests at all venues.

On the property

The Turkish-style soaking pool — a tiled, mosaic-floored heated pool open to guests and (with day passes) to the public — is the property's signature amenity. Multiple bars, the brewery, a small theater showing first-run films, and the converted-school grounds. McMenamins runs a programming calendar of music and events.

• On-site brewery and multiple bars
• Turkish-style heated soaking pool
• Small movie theater (first-run films)
• Live music programming
• Open year-round

Who it's for

• Bend travelers who want to stay in the heart of downtown
• Beer-and-music people who appreciate McMenamins' specific aesthetic
• Couples on a long weekend who'll spend evenings at the brewery
• Anyone tired of generic hotels and looking for a working historic property

Who it's not for

• Travelers wanting quiet, minimalist, or contemporary aesthetics
• Anyone seeking a full-service luxury hotel
• Light sleepers placed near the busiest bar nights

Nearby

Drake Park and the Mirror Pond stretch of the Deschutes are two minutes' walk. The Old Mill District (with shopping, restaurants, and the riverwalk) is fifteen minutes' walk south. Mt. Bachelor for skiing is twenty-five minutes west. Smith Rock State Park is thirty minutes north. The Deschutes Brewery (Bend's beer-tourism anchor) is in the Old Mill District. Tumalo Falls is twenty minutes west.