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Hougoumont Hotel
Bannister Street, formerly site of the (second) Fremantle Club, Italian Club, Duke of York Hotel, and Stanley Beer House
The (second) Fremantle Club was in Bannister St. It closed in 2008, and was replaced by the Hougoumont Hotel (2013), with the same Bannister St frontage but large additions at the rear. Previous organisations on the site were, in reverse order, Club Giovanni Italia, the Duke of York Hotel, and the Stanley Beer House (1840). The Hougoumont Hotel is named after the ship (1852-1880s) that brought the last convicts of the transportation period, in 1868, including 62 Fenians. The ship in turn was named for the Château d'Hougoumont where the Battle of Waterloo was fought. (Quality Suites, formerly Bannister Suites, is across the road.)
There was a proposition to double the size of the hotel. See the Fremantle Herald, 19 December 2015, below.
In 2020 there is a micro-distillery and bar called Calamity's Rod (the words from a poem by John Boyle O'Reilly) in what was its carpark.
Hougou a no-no
Stephen Pollock
Fremantle Herald, 19 December 2015
[concept drawing]
PLANS for a multi-million dollar extension of the Hougoumont Hotel on Bannister Street have failed to win the backing of Fremantle city council.
The council is only an advisory body for this application, with the final decision in the hands of the local development assessments panel.
The owners wanted to add four storeys and a loft to the western side of the boutique West End hotel.
The proposed extension included 48 bedrooms, 34 car bays, a restaurant/kitchen, bar and conference room.
Council officers advised the height of the building failed to comply with the planning scheme for the historic West End. Several councillors expressed concern about the looming facade and lack of setback.
“I do quite like the design and it’s a high quality proposal, but because it’s the West End we have to preserve the intactness of the area and look at the setback issue carefully,” Cr David Hume said.
Hotel architects provided a slideshow of buildings with similar-style facades in the West End, arguing other “confident buildings” with bold frontages were prevalent.
Mayor Brad Pettitt was won over by the multimedia show and agreed the lack of setback enabled a superior design, but he was outvoted. The Hougoumont Hotel is built on the site of the old Fremantle Club.
Fremantle Club before 2008
Hougo Appeal
Fremantle Herald, 9 April 2016:
THE owners of the Hougoumont Hotel in Fremantle have taken their bid to get a five-storey extension to the powerful but unelected state administrative tribunal.
The local DAP deferred a decision on the extension in January because it wanted Red Rock Consolidated to check its overshadowing on rear neighbours.
One neighbour had challenged the developers’ diagrams with their own, which claimed a greater impact on their property. But the delay ended up allowing Red Rock the opportunity to claim it as a refusal, which it has done.
After SAT-ordered mediation between the DAP and Red Rock, the DAP was “invited” to reconsider its decision on the basis a review of the neighbour’s plans had found they were based on outdated data.
Fremantle council, which has no power in the matter, had opposed the plan as its West End conservation policy only permits a fourth storey if it is setback from the street. Red Rock’s project is set hard against Bannister Street and seeks additional height as a “loft”.
I believe, but can't yet confirm, that the application to the DAP was successful, and that the extension will get its four stories with no setback, and fifth storey 'loft' - against Council's policy in the West End Conservation Precinct.
References and Links
Fremantle Herald, 19 December 2015
Fremantle Herald, 9 April 2016
Hougoumont Hotel website
West Australian, Report on opening of the Italian Club, 7 March 1927, page 11. Thanks to Pam Harris for finding this. >
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 9 August, 2015 and hosted at freotopia.org/hotels/hougoumont.html (it was last updated on 28 November, 2023), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.