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Heritage New Zealand, Autumn 2004

Wrecker's Ball Hangs Over Old Timaru Lady

Demolition for Timaru's 1913 Hydro Grand Hotel, built by an architect who also had a hand in the Chateau Tongariro, will be fiercely resisted by the Historic Places Trust.

Uncertain future... Timaru's Hydro Grand Hotel.

Owned by a consortium of local businesspeople through Grand Piazza Holdings Ltd, this Category II historic place, with a rateable value of $950,000 and overlooking Caroline Bay, is considered by many locals to be too far gone to preserve. But Jennie Hamilton says the Trust will oppose demolition consents in order to save the façade.

"We don't usually agree with facadism but the interior has been changed so much there isn't much left to preserve," she says.

Indeed, over the past 10 years, its various owners have contemplated refurbishment but found the probable cost, estimated at around $1 million, not worth the investment. Instead, many people in Timaru want a large modern convention centre to occupy the site, which is widely considered to have the best views in the town.

The three-storey Edwardian Baroque-style hotel was designed by architect Herbert Hall in partnership with Frederick Marchant. For Hall, the Hydro Grand was a career break, being the largest building he had built to date. Trained in Timaru by Daniel West, Hall had cut his teeth on houses during the pre-war period, but the Hydro was a chance to show what he was capable of. Certainly, representatives of the local press who toured the building a week before it opened early in 1913 were impressed with the design innovation and finishing work that had been realised in construction.

"The hotel, in the construction of which every provision has been made for the comfort of tourists and other guests, is splendidly finished in the Georgian style," the Timaru Herald gushed in 1912.

Novelties for the time and place included an electric elevator, freight lift, steam-drying room and hot running water. The hotel was built of brick and finished with plaster with asbestos ceilings and five fire escapes to reduce the ever-present fire danger. A hot salt-water bath was planned for the ground floor but apparently never completed. The second-floor dining room was a particular attraction.

Said the paper, "The dining room is probably the largest in Timaru and is unique in appearance in that the walls and ceilings are finished in rough cast. There are two fire places in it, and it should prove a very attractive room while the sunny balconies along the front, completely sheltered as they are from cold southerly winds and comfortably seated, promise to prove highly popular."

For the times, the five-metre-by-three-metre bedrooms and the decolite-floored bathrooms were probably regarded as generous but, as tastes changed, the design slowly went out of fashion.

Were the Hydro Grand located near a thermal or alpine attraction or a tropical beach, it would, like the Chateau, no doubt have been a paying proposition to invest in refurbishment. Unfortunately, Timaru has some way to go before it will be a major tourist centre. Nevertheless, the Trust believes it can still preserve a historic local landmark that fuses economic necessity with architectural heritage.

The Hydro Grand Hotel is registered as a Category II historic Place