The Park House Hotel, also known as St. Agatha's Seminary and Burkeley Apartments, is a historic building located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. The building was built in 1852 for Ferdinand Haberstroh. As the Park House Hotel, it catered to those who did business when the city was the capitol of Iowa, and it is one of the few remaining commercial buildings from that era. with After Haberstroh died in 1860, the Rev. William Emonds of near-by St. Mary's Catholic Church bought the property and its debt. Two years later the

Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary The Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known by its initials BVM, is a Roman Catholic religious institute founded in the United States by Mother Mary Frances Clarke. Its founders were Irish Catholics. The BVM currently works in t ...

from Dubuque, Iowa opened St. Agatha's Female Seminary. The building acquired its

mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...

in 1875. Classrooms were located on the first two floors and residential space for the sisters and students who boarded here were on the upper two floors. The school closed in 1909 and Albert Burkeley converted the building into a women's boarding house called "Svendi". After 1918 it became an apartment building known as "Burkeley Place", and it has been an apartment building ever since. The building was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. In 2004 it was included as a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distri ...

in the Jefferson Street Historic District.

References

Residential buildings completed in 1852 Apartment buildings in Iowa City, Iowa Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Apartment buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Iowa City, Iowa Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Iowa {{JohnsonCountyIA-NRHP-stub