- The historic Glenorchy Hotel has been listed for sale.
- It includes a pub, restaurant, café, shops, information centre and accommodation across the operation.
- Owners cite timing, with reported interest from Australians, operators and local businesses.
A landmark hotel with a front-row seat to a string of Hollywood movie productions is up for grabs in Queenstown.
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Dozens of A-list celebrities have made Glenorchy their base while shooting in the surrounding countryside and mountains.
Recent visitors include Brad Pitt for his blockbuster Heart of the Beast, but the town has also hosted Tom Cruise and the cast and crew of Sir Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies.
Some have even stopped at the Glenorchy Hotel for a drink, while Oscar-winning director Jane Campion went a step further, filming scenes inside it for her TV miniseries Top of the Lake.
Brad Pitt shooting his new movie, Heart of the Beast, in Glenorchy last year. Photo / George Heard
Kiwi Oscar-winner Jane Campion filmed scenes for her TV thriller Top of the Lake inside Glenorchy Hotel. Photo / Getty Images
Actress Evangeline Lilly at the premiere of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in 2014. Scenes in the movie were filmed in Glenorchy. Photo / Getty Images
The hotel has been a fixture of the town since the 1880s. The original building on the waterfront burnt down in 1959, but it was revived two years later in a new location at 42-54 Mull Street.
The current owners picked it up 18 years ago but have made the “hard” decision to sell.
Colliers Otago agent Doug Reid said the hotel was “iconic”.
The sprawling operation includes a pub and beer garden, a fully licensed gastropub restaurant, café, general store, bottle shop and information centre, along with accommodation ranging from $75 a night for a dorm bunk to $190 a night for a hotel room.
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Reid said the property had already attracted a lot of interest, including Australian buyers, hospitality operators in New Zealand and local businesses looking to expand.
The hotel’s owners, who do not wish to be named, said in a statement that selling had been a “tough decision”, but they felt the time was right.
“It’s been a great innings, very sad to leave, but the pub is in the best shape it has ever been in; we have locals who have sat on the same stool for a decade or more, and we have looked forward to the return ‘faces’ each year for jetboating or fishing – a fisherman’s paradise.”
The Glenorchy Hotel bar. The town’s dramatic mountain backdrop has made it a firm favourite with Hollywood producers. Photo / Supplied
Glenorchy Hotel is tucked behind the town’s iconic red shed. Photo / Supplied
Walker & Co agent Hamish Walker said Glenorchy had become increasingly popular with high-net-worth individuals because of the privacy and remoteness it offered.
“For people who have the ability to buy anywhere in the world, that uniqueness and privacy can be incredibly compelling.”
Walker said you could buy a really nice holiday home in the town for around $2m, while $30m could buy a property in the gated Wyuna Preserve, which would be “one of the nicest houses across the Queenstown area”.
His colleagues Marc Hamilton and Caleb Rufer are marketing a four-bedroom, three-bathroom home on 1.99ha at 48 Nereus Way with a price indication in the high-$2ms; he himself is about to list a section for sale in the Wyuna Preserve.
A four-bedroom lifestyle property at 48 Nereus Way, in Glenorchy, has a price indication in the high $2ms. Photo / Supplied
25 Mount Alfred Ridge, a Glenorchy mansion linked to Kim Dotcom, is also on the market for sale. Photo / Supplied
Also up for grabs in the town is a mansion linked to Kim Dotcom.
The five-bedroom house at 25 Mount Alfred Ridge, in Glenorchy, has an RV of just under $16m, and boasts breathtaking views of the mountains and Lake Wakatipu. It is for sale by negotiation with New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty agents David Penrose and Tink Brinsley Turner.
The Glenorchy Hotel is the second iconic Central Otago pub to hit the market in the last 18 months. One of the country’s most photographed pubs, Cardrona Hotel near Wānaka, changed hands last October after a three-month search for a new owner.
A group of New Zealand investors bought the 162-year-old pub for an undisclosed sum. Experience Group owner Warren Barclay was named as the pub’s new manager. He said at the time of the sale that the group was committed to preserving the Cardrona Hotel’s heritage, while exploring ways to improve its boutique accommodation, dining and events.
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