Hotel Windsor (Melbourne)
| Hotel Windsor | |
|---|---|
Hotel Windsor from Parliament Station
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| General information | |
| Location | 100–150 Spring Street, Melbourne, Victoria |
| Coordinates | 37°48′43″S 144°58′22″E / 37.81194°S 144.97278°ECoordinates: 37°48′43″S 144°58′22″E / 37.81194°S 144.97278°E |
| Opening | 1884 (Grand Hotel) 1888 (Grand Coffee Palace) 1897 (Grand Hotel) 1920 (Windsor Hotel) 2008 (Hotel Windsor) |
| Owner | Halim Group |
| Management | Halim Group |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 5 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Charles Webb |
| Other information | |
| Number of rooms | 180 |
| Number of suites | 20 |
| Number of restaurants | 1 |
| Parking | off-site |
| Website | |
| http://www.thewindsor.com.au | |
The Hotel Windsor is a luxury hotel in Melbourne. The Windsor is notable for being Australia's only surviving grand 19th century city hotel and only official "grand" Victorian era hotel. The Hotel Windsor has a 5-star rating and is considered one of the grandest hotels in Melbourne.
The Windsor is situated on Bourke Hill in the Parliament Precinct on Spring Street, and is a Melbourne landmark of high Victorian architecture. The hotel has a significant role in the history of Australia as the place where the Constitution of Australia was drafted in 1898. For much of its 20th Century life the hotel, dubbed the Duchess of Spring Street, was one of the most favoured and luxurious hotels in Melbourne. It has hosted many notable national and international guests.
The hotel is currently planning a major renovation which was required by permit to begin by January 2015.
The original hotel was built by shipping magnate George Nipper and designed by Charles Webb in a broadly Renaissance Revival style and was completed in 1884, and named "The Grand". However, Nipper soon sold the building, in 1886, to the a company headed by James Munro and James Balfour. Munro was a politician and the leader of the temperance movement in Victoria, who famously burnt the hotel's liquor licence in public and operated the hotel as a Coffee Palace, now renamed the "Grand Coffee Palace". The building was soon more than doubled in size in 1888, by adding the central section and the north wing, matching the original building, the now internal north wing, and extending the rear wing, all designed again by Charles Webb. Notable features of the expanded hotel included the ballroom, the impressive main staircase, the distinctive twin mansard roofed towers in the Second Empire style, and the stone sculpture, attributed to John Simpson Mackennal, over the main entrance with male female figures known as 'Peace and Plenty' reclining over the English and Australian Coat of Arms.
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