22 The Esplanade, corner Robe Street, St Kilda
MEL: 58 K10
Early impression of the Royal Hotel
On 9th June 1846, the Argus reported, ‘This delightful little
village will not much longer be without a hotel and one too that will not
disgrace the beauty and pleasantness of its situation’.Thus on 20April of the following
year, St Kilda’s first hotel was established in the former home of Sir William
A’Beckett, the first Chief Justice of Victoria.Its owner Joseph Howard was already well known within the community, as
he was also the licensee of the Union Hotel in Elizabeth
Street,
Melbourne, however it
became more famous under James Mooney, who took over the license in 1853.
It
is said that when Mooney took over the hotel a vast proportion of his profits
was due to the gold diggers, flush with their earnings, who came to St Kilda in
great colonial style with their ‘temporary wives’.The Mooney family outlived James to run the
hotel for thirty years after Mooney’s funeral cortege left from there in
1869.Architect William J Ellis called
for tenders for the erection of a verandah and balcony in 1876, and brick
additions in 1881.
On 2 March 1915, owner John
Callan was forced to demolish buildings he had erected on a vacant block
adjoining the hotel and a verandah he added to the front of the hotel, because
they contravened the Council’s building regulations.His claim that he had received permission
from the council was ultimately futile.
It
is now the site of a residential block, the Belvedere Apartments, built in the
1930s.
Royal Hotel corner Robe Street and the
Esplanade, 1864
