Queenscliff Hesse St 46 Vue Grand Hotel, General sheet 134 1981 3

            `John Raven purchased both Allotments Nine and Ten of Section six. These had frontages to both Hobson and Hesse streets1 and were located at the brow of a hill which then dipped steeply towards Swan Bay on one side and to Port Phillip Bay on the other. Allotment Ten remained as garden for a long period,2 but Allotment Nine became the site of Walter Adamson’s Hotel. It was built in 1859 and was originally a substantial timber complex of 30.
rooms. By the 1860s it had expanded to 32 rooms.3 The hotel was then known as the.
‘Australasian Hotel’.4.
John Lang Currier, a grazier from Scotland, acquired the hotel in 1862 due to Adamson’s.
inability to pay his mortgage.5 Adamson however remained as the manager of the hotel until.
1865, when he was replaced by George Admans. Prior to being the manager of the hotel,.
Admans had operated the Swan Hill Hotel at Mercer Street. In 1867, he purchased the.
Australasian Hotel from Currie and closed the Swan Hill Hotel.6 In 1891 he also acquired the.
Ozone Hotel.7 Apart from his career in hospitality, Admans served as mayor of Queenscliffe.
for five years and as a Borough councillor for 20 years.8.
Under the management of Admans, the Australasian Hotel was rebuilt in 1867 to a building.
with 52 rooms and a separate new bar to the south. This new building comprised gable ends.
in its northern and southern sides, and a central brick tower in the front. The hotel was.
operated under the name of ‘Admans’ Hotel’ in 1880.9 Another comprehensive.
redevelopment of the hotel commenced the following year. Designed by Geelong architects.
Watts and Jackson and constructed by builder James Nation & Co of Melbourne, the new.
hotel, built of polychrome brickwork, was estimated to cost 40,000 pounds.10 A ‘Hall by the.
Sea’ (later known as the Vue Grand Ballroom) was added in the south-east corner of the.
hotel shortly afterwards.11 The hall, said to be capable of accommodating over 1,000 people.
soon became the hotel’s main attraction.12.
Construction of the new hotel was staged,13 to allow for continuous trading during the works..
The hotel’s northern wing of 90 rooms, including the central entrance tower, was opened in.
December 1881 leaving the former Australasian bar in full operation.14 The remaining wing.
was completed by December of the following year at a cost of 52,000 pounds. The finished.
building was by far Queenscliff’s grandest hotel of the nineteenth century, rivalling its.
Melbourne contemporaries..
As soon as Admans’ Grand Hotel was completed, it was sold to the Port Phillip Steamship and.
Hotel Company. Later owners included George Witten and George F Baillieu,15 the Colonial.
Bank of Australasia (during the 1890s Depression)16 and, by the 1900s, Councillor Lewis.
Klug.17.
On 30 October 1927, a fire occurred in the hotel and gutted the whole front section of the.
building. The rear was undamaged.18 After the fire, the hotel was sold to Charles.
Sibereisen, who was also the owner of the Grand Theatre.19 Under the direction of architect.
Garfield Bolton, and Sam House, a builder and bricklayer, a plan to repair the damage.
began. Due to the prohibitive cost, they abandoned the idea of rebuilding the hotel to its.
original design, and instead rebuilt part of the hotel in an inter-war Mediterranean-style,.
replacing the slate tiled hipped-roofs with glazed terracotta tiles and introducing a colonnade.
of stuccoed masonry arches on the front facade. The third floor dormers of the two end bays.
and the central tower were not reconstructed. The result is a highly modified building.
combining aspects of its original Victorian presentation with an overlay of inter-war fabric.20.
Vue Grand Hotel was sold to Equinox Hotels Pty Ltd in 1983 and to Grand Investment Group.
in 2006.21 It continues to operate as a hotel..
(Queenscliffe Urban Conservation Study, Allom Lovell and Associates, 1984; additional.
research by Lovell Chen, 2008)'
   

Taken on: September 27, 2017

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Sets appears in: • Queenscliffe heritage 1981

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