Wgtn firm to buy Hanmer Lodge?

Press, 12 November 1981, Page 1

Wgtn firm to buy Hanmer Lodge?

The Lodge at Hanmer Springs may be bought by a big Wellington hotel and travel firm. It appears that the sale will depend on the buyer’s being able to get a Housing Corporation loan of more than $1 million to refurbish the hotel. A price for The Lodge itself has apparentlybeen agreed to. The Lodge is owned by Lodge Investments, Ltd, Mr John Arrowsmith and Mrs Arrowsmith the only shareholders. Mr Arrowsmith said yesterday that the Wellington firm had approached him and together they had reached a broad agreement, but as yet nothing had been signed. He said there had been an exchange of letters and he was treating the . proposed sale as a “genuine inquiry.” However, if the Housing Corporation did not see fit to lend the firm money to refurbish the hotel, a sale would be unlikely.

Speculation about the hotel’s future is running high in Hanmer Springs after a letter from the Minister of Tourism and member of Parliament for Rangiora (Mr Quigley), which was circularised in the village. He said

that negotiations for a sale were proceeding but there was no guarantee that these would be successfully concluded. He said that the Tourist Hotel Corporation was not the prospective buyer as rumoured.