Opened in 1889 by James Davoran (or James Donovan?). The hotel was built with a variety of styles and features – colonial verandas, parapets, long corridors and dozens of rooms. Text from Past Port. The Rate Book indicates that the building at 1891 is a Brick Building of 42 rooms.
ne was recorded in 1893. In 1906, Miss Ellen Dunne was the licensee (Hotels in Fitzroy up to 1906, Nicola A Piccolo).
“This three storey hotel building was constructed in 1889 on an angled site. It is unusual for the three bays of verandah / balcony on the St.George’s Road side. The upper section remains open but the ground floor was altered in 1938 when the hotel was extensively renovated (Drawings held at the Fitzroy Town Hall. Four drawings of alterations. Architects: Sydney Smith, Ogg and Serpell, Builder: A. H. Duncan). The ground floor corner windows were also altered at this date. The cast iron balustrades have been replaced by wire mesh but the iron friezes and brackets are still intact. French doors open from the bedrooms onto the balconies. The remainder of the façade is in a fairly primitive eclectic classical manner. On the first floor there are three windows surmounted by a horizontal window hood with brackets at either end. Breaking through this are corbelled pilasters and half pillars which support a pediment surmounted by a decorative acroterion. On the first and second floor level on the Holden Street elevation there are two arch headed windows with engaged columns at either side. rounds or patera fill the spandrels on either side of the arches and a cartouche or scroll replaces a keystone. This is similar detailing to that employed by the architect Walter Scott Law. On the splayed corner, on the first and second floor levels there are smaller arch headed windows which have similar cartouche keystone motif. The whole row of ground floor arch windows on the Holden Street side also have the scroll cartouche keystone. There is a balustraded parapet and the bases remain of urns. The chimneys are banked together and in one case five flues are grouped together with semi-circular divisions according to the Doulton patent.” (North Fitzroy Conservation Study 1978). (Glossary)