The Great Southern Hotel. (aka Beaumaris Hotel - c.a. 1888) Designed in 1888, by prominent late-Victorian architect James Birtwhistle, the Great Southern Hotel was touted as the Grand Dame of Beaumaris and was to become the most splendidly beautiful of all the hotels in Marvellous Melbourne. It was to occupy a frontage of approximately two hundred and eighty feet, having an easterly aspect facing the sea. It was to contain two large entrance halls and two large stair halls with grand staircases on either side to accommodate the upper storey levels, much in the same manner as the Mentone Hotel. Opening from the stair halls were to be enormous dining rooms with open roofs and ornamental wooden ceilings. There would be a billiard hall on either side of the hotel, each with room for several tables, smoking rooms, reading rooms, and twelve additional sitting rooms and private dining rooms for excursionists. On the first floor there was to be twelve suites of sitting rooms and bedrooms, each with a large drawing room, as well as thirty two large bedrooms, with thirty bedrooms on the second floor – one hundred and twenty two rooms in all. A five story tower with ornate spiral staircase and lookout would have been the jewel in the crown and would be visible for miles around. The completed section of the hotel had a frontage of approximately one hundred and twenty feet and eventually became the Beaumaris Hotel, representing a mere forty percent of the complete structure. The section was built in such a way so that it would operate on its own as a fully functional hotel until the remaining sections were added later. However, towards the end of the 1880s, Australia began to suffer economically through a worsening financial crisis and funding for the Great Southern Hotel construction literally began to run out. The banks were no longer lending money and companies everywhere were going broke. After completing work on the northern portion of the hotel the decision was made to halt all construction on the site until further notice. The builder, Mr A. Oliver, was paid $7,700 pounds ($1.5m) for his work and the hotel was finally opened in 1889. By the early 1890s many banks had either collapsed or closed their doors due to the severe economic depression Australia was facing at the time. An unfortunate victim of the times, the grand vision which was to be The Great Southern Hotel of Beaumaris, would never see the light of day. (Image: Sandringham & District Historical Society)
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 09:32:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015