Embassy Hotel

The existing buildings on the site, built around 1885 and known at one time as the Hayes Buildings, had to be demolished. Previously the corner site was occupied by the Criterion Hotel, which was built in 1865. Builder A. J. Dickinson of Old Cleveland Road, Coorparoo, won the tender to remove the old buildings and erect the new hotel. An application to construct the hotel was submitted to the Brisbane City Council for approval on 5 June 1928, with the estimated cost of the project being £28,000. Construction of the Hotel Embassy commenced soon thereafter.

The progress of construction for this new, modern hotel was followed by The Architectural & Building Journal of Queensland. On 10 December 1928, after providing a floor-by-floor description of the building, the journal reported that the hotel expected to be ready to serve and accommodate customers by early January 1929. The hotel was built with two entrances, with the main entrance in Edward Street. The ground floor contained a bar, while the first floor contained a public lounge and a two-bedroom private suite. The third and fourth floors were devoted to guests’ bedrooms and the flat roof was laid out as a garden for visitors to enjoy. 

The 1920s was a period of economic prosperity in Queensland and this was reflected in the building program occurring in the state’s capital, particularly its CBD. As a result, many of the CBD’s hotels were refurbished and remodelled, including the Victory Hotel and the Exchange Hotel further along Edward Street. The importance of providing Brisbane with modern hotels at this time was explained in The Architectural & Building Journal of Queensland:

banks and hotels are among the chief reflectors of civic enterprise, success and stability. In the last five years, Brisbane has enlarged its business scope to an extent that finds due expression in the proportions of its new buildings.1

The Hotel Embassy was specifically mentioned as one of the new buildings that reflected Brisbane’s success. Indeed the construction, across from the Hotel of Invicta House in 1923 and nearby Pioneer House in 1924, gave the south side of the Edward and Elizabeth Street intersection a very modern appearance as a result of the CBD’s interwar building boom.

 

The Hotel Embassy opened for business on 25 February 1929. It was described as a credit to both Donoghue and Dickinson in that the building’s construction “leaves nothing to be desired”.1 According to J. J. Donnelly in his c1964 thesis Hotels of Brisbane, at least four new pubs were built in the CBD during the interwar period. They were Hotel Brisbane (Ann and Wharf Streets corner), Hotel Daniel (Adelaide and George Streets corner), Hotel Majestic (George Street) and the Hotel Embassy. The first Lennon’s Hotel (later to become U.S. General MacArthur’s domicile from 1942-44) was constructed in Queen Street. As well, the private Atcherley Hotel in Queen Street, (with a bar available only to the hotel’s patrons) and the Canberra Hotel in Ann Street (a temperance, therefore no-alcohol establishment) were also constructed in the CBD at this time. Of these, only the Hotel Embassy is extant.

As would be expected of a business that has to stay abreast of ever changing trends in hotel patronage, the Hotel Embassy has undergone a number of makeovers throughout the years. The main changes occurred after Brisbane’s major brewery Castlemaine Perkins acquired the hotel in 1939. In 1958, a shop was added to the Edward Street side of the hotel site. Alterations and additions were made in 1951, 1953, 1963, 1968, 1970, 1977 and 1981, resulting in the gradual removal of all of the original ground floor interiors. In 1979, Castlemaine Perkins removed the roof garden to add a fifth floor to the hotel. In 1999, a $1.5 million refurbishment occurred that was designed to “reinstate the pub’s 1970s reputation as the place to be”.1

Corner pubs within the CBD became familiar landmarks by which the public could easily identify a particular intersection. However, the pressure of commercial development on CBD corner sites, the change in drinking habits caused by the state government’s drink driving campaigns and the spread of off-licence beer, wine and spirits shops throughout Brisbane’s suburbs have all contributed to the demise of corner hotels in the CBD. Of the 33 hotel sites identified in 1951, only 8 remain in their original form.  The return to inner city living in the last decade may see the remaining corner hotels once again become ‘the local’ to scores of residents moving into the new inner city apartment towers.

In 1986, the Hotel Embassy was included in the National Trust of Queensland’s Sailing Days Heritage Walk and also in its The Dream Palace Heritage Walk. Post-Expo ’88, the Brisbane Development Association marked the Hotel Embassy as one of 28 historic places to be included in a proposed Brisbane City Circle tramway linking the CBD with Southbank. The Brisbane History Group identified the Hotel Embassy as a part of Brisbane’s commercial heritage in 2002, when they included it in their publication Walking Tours – Brisbane’s Commercial Heritage 1900-1940.

The exterior of this Interwar Commercial Palazzo style building is light brown face brick with an emphatic cornice above the original top floor. The piers are emphasised and waving balconies feature at what was originally the top floor. The first floor features decorative keystones above the window arches. All windows are vertical. In 1958 a shop in the same face brick with a complementary façade was added to the Edward Street side of the hotel site.

The original ground floor contained public and private bars, lounges, offices and restrooms. A bottle shop was located on the Elizabeth Street side. The first floor contained a large dining room, kitchen and various offices, sitting rooms, lounges and bedrooms. The upper floors comprised bedrooms, some with private bathrooms and a lounge on each floor. Electric elevators served all floors.

A number of makeovers from 1951 caused the removal of all original ground floor interiors, changed the street-level facades and most of the pressed metal lining to the original cantilevered awning. Aluminium windows have replaced the original sashes.

In particular, the Hotel Embassy retains some of its 1928 fabric: basement entrance, private bar entrance, suspended awning, a relatively intact façade, balconettes, upper floors’ metal window frames and some corridor walls.1

1. Brisbane History Group, Walking Tours – Brisbane’s Commercial Heritage 1900-1940, Brisbane, Brisbane History Group, 2002, p. 54

2. Brannock & Associates, The formerHotel Embassy – Cultural Heritage Appraisal, (Brisbane: Brannock & Associates submission, September 2007), p 9

3. J. V. D. Coutts (ed.), The Architectural & Building Journal of Queensland, 10 October 1928, p.71

4. J. V. D. Coutts (ed.), The Architectural & Building Journal of Queensland, 11 March 1929, p.54

5. The Courier Mail, 9 July 1999, p.36.

6. Brannock & Associates, The formerHotel Embassy – Cultural Heritage Appraisal, (Brisbane: Brannock & Associates submission, September 2007), pp 14-15

7. Brannock & Associates, The formerHotel Embassy – Cultural Heritage Appraisal, (Brisbane: Brannock & Associates submission, September 2007)

8. Brisbane City Council, Properties on the Web, website, post-1946 building cards and historical records

9. Brisbane City Council, 1946 aerial photographs.

10. Brisbane Development Association, Brisbane City Circle – tram link proposal, Brisbane, Brisbane Development Association, c1988

11. Brisbane History Group, Walking Tours – Brisbane’s Commercial Heritage 1900-1940, Brisbane, Brisbane History Group, 2002

12. The Courier Mail, 1999.

13. Coutts, J.V.D. (ed.), The Architectural & Building Journal of Queensland, 1928-1929

14. Department of Natural Resources, Queensland Certificates of title and other records.

15. Donnelly, J.J. Hotels of Brisbane, B. Arch thesis, University of Queensland, 1967

16. Geenwood, Gordon, Brisbane 1859-1959: A History of Local Government, Parramatta, The Cumberland Press, 1959

17. John Oxley Library, photographic collection.

18. John Oxley Library, newspaper clippings files

19. Mahlstedt & Son, City of Brisbane Detail Fire Survey, Map No. 15,1951

20. National Trust of Queensland, Sailing Days Heritage Walk, Heritage Week 1986

21. National Trust of Queensland, National Trust of Queensland Journal, August 1987

22. Queensland Post Office Directories, 1868-1949

23. Watson, Donald & McKay, Judith, A Directory of Queensland Architects to 1940, Brisbane, Fryer Memorial Library, 1984