The Ommaroo Hotel is planning a series of events to celebrate next year’s milestone, and has begun by asking members of the public get in touch to share their stories, pictures and memorabilia linked to the seaside establishment’s past.
With its Victorian façade the building has remained a popular part of the Havre des Pas seafront over the years.
It has been owned by the same family since the 1920s and while other independent hotels have been closing to make way for housing, the Ommaroo has undergone a £1 million interior refurbishment recently.
Fiona Kerley, the managing director of the company, who represents the fourth generation to be involved with the hotel, explained that the business also planned to redecorate the historic frontage of the venue early next year.
The Ommaroo is still owned by Major Colin Grant, Mrs Kerley’s father and chairman of the business, who bought the hotel from his family in 1973.
- Like many hotels the Ommaroo began life as private residences.
- A terrace of four homes, named Ommaroo 1 4, were turned into a small hotel in 1916.
- The name of the homes, and later the hotel, is thought to have come from New Zealand, where a town named Oamaru was named after a Maori chief.
- In 1927 the Palmer and Rowley families bought the hotel, which ran successfully until the start of the Second World War, when the building was used to house German officers.
- It reopened as a commercial operation after Liberation Day and in 1973 Major Colin Grant, the grandson of former owner Tom Palmer, bought the hotel and continued the operation.
- A new wing to the right of the hotel was built in the late 20th century and behind the building the original coach house still exists.
