Consortium buys Carlton Hotel

Press, 6 August 1976, Page 3

Consortium buys Carlton Hotel

After 50 years in the one family, the Carlton Hotel has been sold to Inns of Canterbury, Ltd, a consortium of New Zealand Breweries, Ltd, and Ballins Industries, Ltd.

The hotel, which is 70 years old, will be leased for a year from November 1 before it formally changes hands on November 1, 1977, The purchase price has not been given by either the consortium or the present owners, but a Government valuation in July, 1974, put the capital value of the land and property at $1.15M.

The managing director of Carlton Hotel (Christchurch), Ltd (Mr A. R. O’Malley),i said his family had decided! to sell the property for per-} sonal reasons. The other directors of the company are Mr J. G. O’Malley and Mesdames C. M. Smith and C. J. Bunting. Mr A. R. O’Malley has been mainly responsible for the development of the hotel into the present large complex.

MR O’MALLEY j

After working at. the Wal-I ( dorf Astoria in New York in|< 1946, he had wanted to build J a high-rise hotel but finance would not allow it. he said, j “As we could not go up. : we decided to go out and ] [bought up adjacent proper- ( ties until we had the present j two acres and a half.” ; | Extensive work was < carried out in 1973, costing } $500,000, which included two'l

new bars, a restaurant, and a new bottle store. The old bottle store at the corner of Bealey Avenue and Papanui Road was the first drive-in bottle store in New Zealand, Mr A. R. O’Malley said. Extensive interior and ex-! terior renovations will be! carried out on the hotel before the consortium takes over in November. The first hotel at the Carlton corner was built in 1863. It was a favourite haunt of, among others, Samuel Butler, the Author of “Erewhon.” The old wooden building; was pulled down in 1906, and the present hotel built by the brewers, Ward and Company, for the International Exhibition in North Hagley Park in 1906-07. Mr A. .1. O’Malley bought ‘the hotel in 1926 for $40,000, and it has been in his family since. Business at the Carlton Hotel has flourished, and it now has a turnover of slm. It was for this reason that early in 1974 the day-to-day running of the hotel was brought under the direction of a committee of three appointed by New Zealand ’Breweries and Ballins.