The Orient Hotel is a heritage-listed hotel at 560 Queen Street, Brisbane CBD, Queensland, Australia, on the corner of Ann Street. It was originally built as the Excelsior Hotel in 1875 and extended in 1884, both of which were designed by Brisbane architect Richard Gailey. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 23 April 1999.
History The Hotel Orient, a three-storeyed brick building erected for Brisbane publican John Morse as the Excelsior Hotel, was constructed in two stages: a two-storeyed building with cellar in 1875, with a third floor and southern extension in 1884. Both stages were designed by Brisbane architect Richard Gailey. Occupying an early Queen Street subdivision, the hotel illustrates the northern extension of the Brisbane central business district around Petrie's Bight in the last quarter of the 19th century.
John Morse emigrated from England to Queensland in 1862. He held the licence to the Assembly Hotel at the corner of Edward and Margaret Streets, Brisbane, from 1865 to 1868, then followed the gold rush to Gympie, where he was licensee of the Bendigo Hotel until returning to Brisbane in 1873, taking up the licence to the Union Hotel at the corner of Ann and Wickham streets (now Centenary Place), which he held until 1875. By 1875 he was married with a young family.
In 1874 Morse purchased in two parcels a small, triangular block diagonally opposite the Union Hotel – of land at the intersection of Queen and Ann streets, Petrie's Bight. The subdivisions were part of an early town allotment alienated in 1864 by William Hobbs, and subdivided by Josiah Young in 1874. The site was strategically located along Queen Street, the principal thoroughfare between Brisbane Town and Fortitude Valley, and was close to the Union Hotel and Morse's regular client base. Petrie's Bight was then developing rapidly, stimulated by construction of municipal wharves on the Brisbane River downstream from the Customs House in 1875–1877.
Brisbane architect Richard Gailey called tenders for the construction of a hotel at the corner of Queen and Ann streets in November 1874, the same month that Morse gained title to the property. Gailey was a Derry architect who had settled in Brisbane in 1864. He established his own practice here in 1865, and over the next 60 years built up a thriving business, working until his death in 1924. Hotels were Gailey's speciality. He designed over 30 hotels or modifications to existing hotels in Brisbane alone in the period 1869–1895, with hotel work elsewhere throughout the colony. The largest and most opulent of the Gailey-designed hotels were erected during the 1880s, reflecting the general building boom in Queensland during a period of unprecedented economic growth. His impressive surviving boom era hotels include the Regatta Hotel (1886) at Toowong, and in Fortitude Valley the Wickham Hotel (1884–1885), the Prince Consort Hotel (1887–1888), the Jubilee Hotel (1887–1888), and the Empire Hotel (1887–1889). The Hotel Orient is his earliest surviving and still operating Brisbane hotel, and contributes significantly to our understanding of his work.
In mid-1875 Morse registered a mortgage on the Queen and Ann Streets corner site, which is likely to have financed construction of the hotel. The building was completed by June 1875, when he applied for a license to operate the place as the Excelsior Hotel. At that time the building was his own property, unoccupied, yet to be licensed, and containing more than the necessary accommodation as required by the Publican's Act. An 1881 bird's-eye sketch of Brisbane shows the early Excelsior Hotel as a two-storeyed building with a cantilevered first floor verandah.
The hotel appears to have prospered with the growth in trade centred around Petrie's Bight. In September 1884 Gailey called tenders for additions to the Excelsior Hotel, consisting of an additional story on the present building, and a three-story building at the southern end, extending from Queen to Ann streets. This established the present form of the building.
About 1888 the remodelled hotel was advertised as one of the architectural features of the city – fitted up with every appliance and found with every convenience necessary to the carrying on of a large business, and the comfortable accommodation of the public. The house is situated in one of the most charming parts of the city, and from it may be gained a panoramic view of the river and the surrounding suburbs. Balconies extend round the hotel, and on these open large and comfortably-furnished rooms, thus securing to the visitor plenty of fresh air during the hot months. A sketch of the hotel which appeared in the Queensland Figaro of 20 April 1889, shows a three-storeyed building with encircling verandahs and French doors on the upper two levels, opening onto the verandahs, with a wider curved street awning at ground level supported by double timber posts. The place was advertised as a family hotel, of first-class standard.
Two decorative iron pillars in the main bar on the ground floor, bearing the lettering A Sargeant & Co., may replace earlier masonry walls. Their style suggests they were installed s, which may indicate another period of renovation of the hotel.
John Morse held the licence to the Excelsior Hotel from 1875 until 1906, with one short-term transfer of the license to George Boreham in 1889–1890. In March 1906 Morse retired from the hotel business, moving to Dornoch Terrace in Highgate Hill, and leasing his hotel to publican John Brosnan, who renamed it the Hotel Orient. A year later Brosnan transferred the lease to Isaac Francis, and throughout most of the 20th century there has been a rapid turnover in lessees and licensees of the place. One of the longest-serving licensees was Joseph Thomas Kelly, who held the license throughout the 1930s and to at least the early 1940s.
Morse's wife, Wilhelmina, died in September 1909, and John in December the same year. The Hotel Orient passed to their daughter, Mary Ann Durham, who retained title to the property until August 1912, when it was transferred to Perkins & Co. Ltd, established Brisbane brewers and hotel owners, which became Castlemaine Perkins Limited in 1928. The Orient Hotel remained the property of this company until 1980. There have been a number of owners since.
In the 1920s and 1930s the Hotel Orient was modernised, during a period of substantial hotel renovation throughout Brisbane. Sewerage was connected in 1925, and in 1930 the Marberete Company installed a cold room and builder SS Carrick carried out alterations, both jobs to designs by Castlemaine Perkins' architects George Henry Addison and Herbert Stanley MacDonald. In 1935 Marberete Company carried out further alterations to the Orient, again to the design of Addison and MacDonald. The 1930s renovations included much use of leadlights and pressed metal ceilings, the remodelling of the ground floor private bar and entrance at the southern end of the building on the Queen Street side, and streamlining of the exterior. A photograph of the renovated Orient Hotel, published in The Sunday Truth of 20 February 1936, shows the 1880s ground level posts and awning replaced with a cantilevered flat awning, the first and second floor verandahs removed, the French doors on these levels converted to windows with narrow encircling roofs over, and a large neon sign above the main roof, displaying CASTLEMAINE XXXX. In April 1936, the Orient Hotel was valued at . Facilities at this time included 2 bars, 3 sitting rooms, 1 dining room, 4 double guest rooms, 15 single guest rooms, 6 sleeping rooms for licensee, family and staff, 4 bathrooms, 9 water closets, and 2 urinals. Although located approximately half a mile from both the Central railway station and the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company (AUSN) wharf, the place was used extensively by the travelling public, and averaged 15 guests per week.
Another significant refurbishment of the Orient Hotel was undertaken . By this time the corner entrance was no longer in use, and the public bar was accessed from Queen Street. The 1956 renovations included changes to the public bar, and the rearrangement of guest lounge, dining room and kitchen facilities on the first floor, to permit increased accommodation for the licensee and staff.
In the early 1980s further substantial refurbishments included the gutting of much of the first floor for a new dining room, bar and kitchen, and changes to the public bar on the ground floor. In 1990 the public bar acquired its present configuration, and in 1995 the premises were converted to budget accommodation, with ensuite bathrooms installed on the top floor.
Despite the ongoing refurbishments, the Orient Hotel retains its 1880s form, and remains one of few 19th century hotels to survive in the Brisbane central business district, where once there were many. It continues to trade as a hotel, and is one of the longest licensed hotels in inner Brisbane, pre-dated only by the Victory Hotel (on the northeast corner of Edward and Charlotte Streets – originally the Prince of Wales Hotel, established 1855), the Exchange Hotel (northwest corner of Edward and Charlotte streets, from 1863), the Port Office Hotel (southeast corner of Edward and Margaret streets – initially the Shamrock Hotel, from 1864), and the Treasury Hotel (northwest corner of George and Elizabeth streets – originally the Dunmore Arms Hotel, from 1865). Social change and renovation of the central business district with high-rise office and apartment blocks, has seen the demolition of 19 major city hotels since 1970 – particularly those which occupied strategic corner positions on principal thoroughfares, as was typical of Brisbane's 19th century hotels.
The Hotel Orient demarks the juncture between Brisbane CBD and Fortitude Valley along a major inner city thoroughfare. Its landmark value is particularly noticeable since the late 20th century demolition of the nearby National Hotel, a late 1880s hotel which occupied a similar triangular-shaped corner site one block to the east, at the intersection of Queen and Adelaide streets.
Description The Hotel Orient, a three-storeyed rendered masonry structure with a hipped corrugated iron roof, is located on an acute corner site at the intersection of Queen and Ann Streets, a major intersection on the edge of the central business district. The building's highly visible location and expressive form make it a city landmark.
The building is located on a triangular site, with the earliest section at the northern end of the site fronting Queen and Ann Streets, and the later addition forming a wing across the southern part of the site linking both street frontages. A small service yard with some later infill is located on the northwest fronting Ann Street, and the wedge-shaped corner of the building fronting Queen and Ann Streets is rounded to form a sharp curve.