Another Baltimore hotel is having financial problems, and it’s not one of the dated dinosaurs downtown.

When Hotel Ulysses opened four years ago in Mount Vernon, Elle Decor magazine dubbed it “Baltimore’s sexiest new hotel.” Since then, the renovated 10-story building with clawfoot tubs and four-poster beds has fallen behind on its sales tax, court records show, racking up a $290,000 bill.

At 116 rooms, Hotel Ulysses is the largest property owned by New York-based Ash Hotels, a boutique hotelier that converts vacant historic buildings into upscale hotels with elegant aesthetics and retro vibes. Ash has four other properties, two of which also have recently faced financial issues.

The Siren in Detroit defaulted on a loan before refinancing with a different lender. Work at Shenandoah Mansions in Richmond, Virginia, stopped following a lawsuit from its general contractor, and the hotel has yet to open.

In statement, Ash said the issues in Detroit and Richmond have been resolved and are unrelated to the situation in Baltimore, where the company said the hotel market is uniquely bad.

Hotel Ulysses, affiliated with Marriott International’s loyalty program Bonvoy, offers rooms starting at $114 a night.

“Of the largest 25 hotel markets in the U.S., Baltimore ranks in the bottom regarding their recovery from Covid with occupancy and average daily room rate still below pre-pandemic levels,” the statement said. “Seven hotels in Baltimore have closed their doors permanently since Ulysses opened in 2022. Ulysses has continued to work closely with the state to proactively foster growth conditions and restore confidence in the Baltimore market.”

But there is another issue involving a burst pipe that could have multimillion-dollar implications for Hotel Ulysses.

Ash bought the property, once known as the Latrobe Building, in 2017 for $3 million, according to property records. Three years later, in the midst of the pandemic, the company borrowed $16 million and started renovations.

The hotel was nearly ready to open in January 2022 when a hot-water pipe on its top floor burst at night, court records show, causing water to spill out onto the floors below for hours.

The damage was extensive, and the increased moisture caused wooden doors throughout the building to split, according to a lawsuit filed by Ash against the subcontractor. The incident delayed the hotel’s opening by several months, but that wasn’t publicly known at the time.

Hotel Ulysses opened in late 2022. It has a cafe bar and two cocktail bars. Conde Nast Traveler magazine called it a “fantastical, spectacularly designed dive into the uncanny” and a hotel for people who love hotels.

“People who, perhaps, work at cool design firms and are in Baltimore on business, or who are lawyers by day but get their kicks reading anarchist poetry at live mic night, or students from nearby Goucher College who are getting their fancy kicks knocking back Manhattans while talking about electives in art history,” the magazine wrote.

Behind the scenes, a legal fight has been brewing. The busted pipe set off a wave of litigation involving Hotel Ulysses, its general contractor, a subcontractor and an insurance company. In its lawsuit against the subcontractor, the hotel claimed it was owed $4.5 million in damages.

Court records show that most of the lawsuits are still active, with the parties in mediation.

Ash said it has continued to invest in the property, including by opening a nearby events space. The hotel’s $16 million construction loan from 2020 has yet to be repaid or refinanced, property records show.