Owner to take over The Lodge

Press, 10 February 1981, Page 2

Owner to take over The Lodge

After leasing The Lodge hotel, in Hanmer Springs, to -. succession of concerns for several years, the owner, Mr John Arrowsmith, will take over the running of the hotel himself. Mr Arrowsmith;-an Auckland businessman, will be in Christchurch and Hanmer Springs this week, arranging for a merger of the leasehold and freehold, as well as the transfer of the liquor licence to his company. Lodge Investments, Ltd, which has owned The Lodge for the last 12 years. In the last four years, four successive lessees have had to .( pull out of >. the hotel,three of them after going into receivership. This. Caused a lot of scepticism. and ill-feeling, particularly among businesses supplying tH,S hotel with goods and services, and among many of Hanmer’s residents, who believed that the onceprestigious hotel had become nothing more than an 'embarrassment to them. The most recent lessee, Mr Rex Hollows, was

recently adjudged bankrupt when his Auckland building and property development company, Rex Hollows, Ltd, received a High Court wind-ing-up order on November 17 Mr Hollows has since sold his major shareholding in Crusader Motels, Ltd, the company leasing The Lodge, and Crusader Motels will be sold to Mr Arrowsmith Before Mr Hollows took over the lease of The - Lodge last year, 1 the hotel was leased by Lorremac Holdings, whose principal was Mr John McElroy, also . an Auckland businessman. Lorremac Holdings ran The Lodge for about a.year . • Its predecessor was Lodge Inns Ltd./Mr James Hanna, the - company’s principal shareholder, was also principal shareholder of Harley Chambers,_ Ltd,) and both companies went into receivership in 1978, leaving debts of $355,000. The previous lessee, Hanmer Properties, Ltd, which ran The Lodge from 1975 to July, 1977, into, receiv-

ership with' a deficiency of $154,528. A mortgagee sale of The Lodge was advertised and arranged in October last year, because of a $16,000 unpaid mortgage to Quill Morris, Ltd, by Lodge Investments. The . sale was called off when the money was paid a week .before the proposed sale. Mr Arrowsmith said yesterday that his plans fori The Lodge would include both additions to and extensive redecoratioh of the present building. A new lounge bar and bistro restaurant, , similar to Cobb and Company family restaurants, is planned for the area of land between the existing public bar and left wing of the hotel. Above it would be conference rooms, adjoining the existing upstairs bedrooms, which would be improved to con-ference-suite status. That would be very expensive, probably in the $250,000 range, and finance was being arranged, Mr Arrowsmith said.