St. Therese Retreat Center is a retreat house and shrine of the Catholic Diocese of Columbus dedicated to Thérèse of Lisieux located on East Broad Street in Columbus, Ohio.
History
In 1926, Bishop James Hartley purchased a house and 77 acres of land which had formerly belonged to Martha Green Deshler, daughter of the prominent Columbus buisnessman John G. Deshler who owned the Deshler Hotel and financed the building of the Wyandotte Building, the first skyscraper in Columbus.
A Romanesque chapel with capacity for 120 congregants dedicated to St. Therese, along with a 38-room dormitory and other buildings designed by Robert Krause were constructed in 1931. The center was entrusted to the care of the Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity, who were active in schools and hospitals in the Diocese and remained in their care until 1971.
In 1970, the name of the facility was changed to the "Shrine Center for Renewal" and more ecumenical uses of the shrine became common, with local Protestant groups using the facility. The chapel was the site of celebrations of the Tridentine Mass in the 1990s. In 1998, part of the original 75-acre parcel was split off to be developed into a senior assisted living facility run by the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm. It also hosted a three-day gathering of Catholics and Sikhs sponsored by the USCCB in May 2014. The same year, the grotto dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes on the grounds of the facility was rebuilt and restored.
In 2020, citing declining use, the Diocese of Columbus closed the retreat center, but in October of 2022 it began to serve as temporary housing for a new order of religious sisters serving in the Diocese.