Motor Hotel May Be Built

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31596, 6 February 1968, Page 1

Motor Hotel May Be Built

Mr T. W. Brian, owner of the Maruia Springs Hotel, which was destroyed by fire early on Saturday, plans to give full service to travellers within a few months.

By 2 p.m. yesterday bar facilities and petrol pumps were again in use. Within a fortnight Mr Brian expects to be serving meals from temporary accommodation. This week he will consult with a Wellington architect he has asked to consider plans for a new hotel. ■ Mr Brian says it is likely that the new premises will be in the motor-hotel pattern. A dining-room, bars and lounge will be in one block end sleeping accommodation in small units. Mr Brian was thinking over plans yesterday while he and a few of his staff cleared up the debris from the fire. “We are living in three caravans just below the site' of the ruins,” he said. Mr Brian said that a report in “The Press” yesterday that the Mountain View Lodge Hotel at Springs Junction was handling all bookings for the Maruia Springs Hotel was incorrect. It was also incorrect that he and his staff

were or had been staying at the lodge. “We are still handling our own bookings and anyone who has already booked with us is welcome to contact us about them,” he said. Mr Brian got out of the fire on Saturday with only a pair of pyjamas. Yesterday he was working in clothes lent to him by a farmer. The bar is in a 30ft by 20ft building put up at the weekend in the car park in front of the hotel.

Oil company technicians who went to Maruia Springs yesterday installed new pumping equipment.