Plans To Develop Maruia Hotel

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31049, 3 May 1966, Page 1

Plans To Develop Maruia Hotel

(From Our Own Reporter) HANMER SPRINGS, May 2. The Maruia Springs Hotel, on the Lewis Pass road, has been sold for more than £30,000.

A Christchurch businessman, Mr T. Brian, this evening said that he and a partner had bought the hotel from Maruia Hot Springs Hotel, Ltd. The sale had been negotiated with Mr J. Booth, the principal of the hotel company. Mr Brian said that he and the proposed new resident manager of the hotel, Mr J. Marshall, would take over the hotel on equal shares at midnight on May 31. The hotel accommodates about 40 persons in 20 bedrooms, but Mr Brian said that he expected to increase the accommodation soon. A programme to develop the 76 acres surrounding the hotel would be embarked on almost immediately, said Mr Brian. The plans included special facilities for conferences, a nine-hole golf course, and additional motels. Mr Brian said he also

planned to put in soon an iceskating rink, using water diverted from a power plant. He intended to increase vastly the electric power production by installing the water turbine that is used as a stand-by unit for Akaroa. The water to drive the turbine would come from a stream piped about 850 ft above the hotel. Mr Brian said he hoped to have central heating in the hotel by piping in boiling water from the hot springs. He intended to build huts for sportsmen on the 76-acre site. These would be a little distance from the hotel. Mr Brian said he would also cater for the family man by building a first-class camping ground.