WATCH: Take a sneak peek as the historic Koroit convent transforms

Husband and wife Professor Gary Egan and Cynthea Wellings purchased the Koroit convent in 2022, about 25 years after they started visiting the town with their children for the Lake School of Celtic Music, Song and Dance program.

The convent was built in 1906. In September the following year about 5000 people gathered at the Anzac Avenue site for its opening.

Professor Egan said the couple attempted to restore it "as much as we can to the original features and ethos of the building".

"It wasn't ever really a grandiose home or anything, it was a working building for education and it was a living quarter for the nuns," he said.

Ms Wellings said the original features that remained included the hardwood ceilings, the stained glass windows, the stairway, the paintwork on the chapel walls, pews and the foundation stone which was laid on May 6, 1906.

She said the two front rooms where the nuns used to teach, including their speciality in music, would be used by the Lake School.

"So we see music as really part of the heritage in this building," Ms Wellings said.

She said the venue would also be accessible for people who live with a disability, with a lift being installed and bathrooms being renovated to fit a wheelchair.

Ms Wellings said one thing that surprised her throughout the renovation process was the emotional ties people had to the building.

"I'm getting the feedback of that all the time, which I never expected," she said. "I just never realised the building had that.

"People have memories of this building. They went to school here or their mother came to school here, there was a nun they knew here or Father Lawrie (Lawrence O'Toole) over the road.

"It's got an incredible patronage of people and we're seeing it with the tradies (tradespeople), a lot of them have some sort of connection to the building."

Ms Wellings said the difficulty of transforming a building of its kind was how to re-purpose it in a sustainable manner.

"The problem is in Australia there's not a lot of these buildings so it's really important they are properly maintained," she said.

Ms Wellings said this was something the couple came across when they embarked on a six-week trip to Scotland and Ireland in 2023 to draw inspiration from the European convents.

She said it was difficult to access the convent buildings in Ireland.

"What became obvious was there is a shrinkage of the nun population and as a result a lot of these buildings are having to be repurposed," she said.

"(But) It's not just convents, it's stately homes (where aristocratic families resided) and magnificent buildings from the last 200 or 300 years, even 400 years, so there's a real issue with all the compliance issues of how do you re-purpose them."

Ms Wellings said the investment to re-purpose a building like the Koroit Convent was "pretty substantial".

"...In order to do that you've got to kind of think of how can you actually run a business that is sustainable...." she said.

"What we're doing is (thinking) what business would work here that is also simpatico to the local community because quite a few of the local community were very concerned when we said we were going to do a wedding venue."

The Standard previously reported Moyne Shire councillors voted at the council's June meeting to grant a planning permit to the owners for the historic site to become a wedding and events venue.

The proposal triggered 15 objections, mainly from concerned neighbours worried about the noise and cars parking out the front of their houses, with one neighbour stating he was worried it was "changing the character of the area".

Ms Wellings said the objections changed their business plans.

"It doesn't mean we won't occasionally have a full-on wedding," she said. "We want to make this building work and it will only work for us if it works for everyone."

She said the couple saw themselves as custodians of the building.

"We're future-proofing it now for the future. It will be for the next generation and the generation after," Ms Wellings said.

"We want this to be here as a living icon for the community."

The venue is expected to open for accommodation bookings from May 1, 2024.