1930’s Royal Narrabeen Hotel

c1930’s Royal Narrabeen Hotel.
It’s not the oldest hotel on the northern beaches but like almost every other hotel on the peninsula, the hotel at Narrabeen has had several incarnations, several name changes, numerous owners and literally dozens of licensees.

The hotel opened in 1886 as the Narrabeen Inn after a liquor licence was granted to C.W. Prowse before it was taken over in 1888 by Robert Norris, who changed it to the Narrabeen Hotel.

In 1900, the license for the hotel was transferred to Ralph Stennett, a well known swimmer who managed the Manly Municipal Baths from 1893 to 1900.

Stennett only held the licence of the Narrabeen Hotel for a year, after which it passed to Charlotte Boutin, who held it for 11 years.
But disaster befell the hotel in April 1907, when the main building was destroyed by a fire that broke out about 4.30am. The hotel was insured for £800 but the damage bill was estimated at more than £2000.

Madame Boutin engaged an architect to design a new hotel to be made of brick and comprising 11 bedrooms, five sitting rooms, a massive dining room, a parlour, a bar, a bar parlour, servant’s quarters and sundry rooms, verandas and stables.

While the new hotel was being built, Mme Boutin operated a hotel from a nearby timber building and lived in a small cottage at the rear of the razed hotel. Mme Boutin operated the Narrabeen Hotel until March 1911, when it was purchased by Charles Bacon.

Mr Bacon only operated the hotel for two years before it was bought by Maurice Garwood in October 1913, who retained it until April 1922, during which time he changed the name to the Royal Narrabeen Hotel.

Garwood operated the Royal Narrabeen Hotel until April 1922, when he sold it to Patrick McCauley. In 1926, McCauley engaged architects Messrs J. E. and E.
R. Justelius to design a new hotel for the site.
The result was a fine two storey hotel that became a local landmark. In 1928 McCauley sold the Royal Narrabeen Hotel to Charles Lockett, although it was at this time that brewer Tooheys took a financial stake in the hotel that eventually led to it taking full control.

Lockett remained the licensee until 1930, after which it was taken over by Henry Tamm, but he died in 1933 and his wife Ethel became the licensee until 1937, when the licence was transferred to Clara McGrath. Mrs McGrath died in 1938, after which Mary Ryan became
the manageress of the hotel. But Mrs McGrath’s time in charge of the hotel was not without problems.

During a Royal Commission on Liquor in 1952, Tooheys admitted that it had had to discipline the manager of the Royal Narrabeen Hotel during World War II for unspecified acts of misconduct and after the war had been forced to change licensees.

The change of management of the hotel in 1949 was not forced by Tooheys, however, but by the patrons of the hotel, who were upset at the attitude of Mrs Ryan. They accused her of being high-handed and rude in her treatment of patrons, then picketed the hotel and contested the renewal of her licence.

Mrs McGrath bowed to the pressure, withdrew her application for her licence to be renewed and it was taken up by her sister, Catherine McGrath, in June 1949 but transferred to John Eggleston in September 1949.

After Eggleston, the licence to operate the Royal Narrabeen Hotel changed hands on a regular basis and in December 1963 the name of the hotel was changed to the Royal Antler Hotel.
Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the Royal Antler Hotel became famous as a venue for live music.

The Bayfield family took over the lease of the Narrabeen Royal Antler Hotel in 1985, renovated it as the Narrabeen Sands Hotel in 1987 and sold the lease in 1990.

By then the Narrabeen Sands Hotel was part of the Austhotel chain, a joint venture between Bond Corp and Melbourne hotel entrepreneur Bruce Mathieson. Lion Nathan bought half of Bond Corp’s Natbrew Holdings in 1990 and the other half in 1992.

In 2004, it was announced that Narrabeen Sands Hotel would be redeveloped in a way that included the demolition of the grand old hotel and the construction of a smaller hotel and of a block of flats at the northern end of the site.
The new Narrabeen Sands Hotel opened in November 2007, by which time it had been acquired by the ALH Group in 2004.

John Morcombe / The Manly Daily

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