Cleopatra Hotel

Statement of Significance

The place is historically significant as hotel representing the development of Fremantle’s Old Port City from the gold boom period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The place is a fine example of a Federation Free Classical style building, with elaborate stucco decoration above the ground floor level, that makes a significant contribution to the streetscape. The place is of social significance as evidenced by its classification by the National Trust.

Physical Description

Two storey hotel with highly decorative façade and parapet featuring 'Hotel Cleopatra Hotel' in the stucco pediment. The façade on the centre of the ground floor and the first floor has banded piers and three stucco archways each forming a loggia. The ground floor has a concave bays with pairs of glazed doors below multi-paned transom lights on the left and windows on the right of the façade. There is a pair of double hung sash windows, stucco arched keystone and decorative skirts either side of the first floor loggia.

History

High Street was named by Surveyor General Roe - as was customary in English towns, the main street of the town was named High Street. Eastward from William Street the roadway was completed by convict labour after the Town Hall was built in 1887. High Street around the Town Hall closed to traffic in 1966. The High Street Mall was trialled in November 1973 and made a permanent pedestrian mall in 1975. The first hotel on this site was the Crown and Thistle built in the early 1850’s by the Francisco family. The Francisco family sold the property to Pearse and Owston in 1880. Captain E.H. Fothergill leased it from Pearse and Owston in May 1881, renovated it and named it the Cleopatra after a ship he owned. Fothergill was licensee of the hotel from 1882 and owner from the early 1890’s – 1896 when he died at the hotel. Ownership was taken over by the Swan Brewery 1906. The building was demolished and architect J.H. Eales was employed to design a new hotel on the site of the original. The work was completed in August 1907. In 1985 more than $50,000 was spent on renovations and it was renamed the Auld Mug Tavern. A fire gutted the second storey in 1988. 1993-1997 name changed to the West End Hotel 1997 name changed to Coakley’s. Came up for sale 2001. The Edmund Rice Centre (affiliated with Notre Dame University) bought the building in Nov 2001.

Condition

Fair.

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

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