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Central Court

39 - 49 Lake Street, Cairns

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Central Court Hotel, Cairns (2015); Heritage Branch Staff

Central Court Hotel, Cairns (2015)

Central Hotel in Cairns 1932 ; State Library of Queensland

Central Hotel in Cairns 1932

Central Court (2013); Heritage Branch

Central Court (2013)

Central court interior (2008); EHP

Central court interior (2008)

The two-storey brick hotel was completed in 1909 for Cairns businessman William Munro. Munro, with partners R and J Gordon had established a pastoral empire in North Queensland and wholesale and retail butcheries in Cairns. His other business interests included sugar, mining, dairying and real estate. He was chairman of the Cairns Shire Council for 17 years; the equivalent of Mayor. The building was designed by architects Tunbridge, Tunbridge and Lynch and built by Mr W Phillips. Townsville building suppliers Rooney and Sons provided many of the decorative features internally, including the bar. All was transported by schooner from Townsville. The hotel had a bar and parlours on the ground floor. The first floor contained an expansive verandah, dining room, kitchen & serving rooms, sitting room, 27 guest bedrooms, bathrooms, and accommodation for the lessee and staff. The dining room, which featured a domed roof and glass front to the verandah, could accommodate 100 diners. The hotel remained substantially intact until 1975, when the ground floor interior was remodelled. Then, in 1988, the building was transformed into a ground floor shopping mall with restaurant and entertainment facilities on the first floor.

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Coordinates: -16.92370886, 145.7767372

Full details of this heritage-registered place are in the Heritage register.

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Licence
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Last reviewed
1 July 2022
Last updated
28 February 2023