Historic outback pub hits the market as restoration costs soar

Historic Kalgoorlie-Boulder hotel hits market again amid heritage challenges In short: The 128-year-old Cornwall Hotel in Boulder has survived riots and earthquakes and has now been listed for sale. It last traded as a pub in 2010 when it was badly damaged by an earthquake, although it has undergone extensive structural repairs. What's next? The hotel's interior needs additional restoration work, but ongoing shortages of skilled tradespeople represent a challenge alongside heritage restrictions. A heritage-listed hotel in Western Australia's Goldfields, infamous for its connection to the murders of two police officers a century ago, has hit the market, with an asking price of more than $1 million. It is the second time the Cornwall Hotel in Boulder has been listed for sale in the past decade, in a sign that the overheated construction market and onerous heritage obligations could be turning off potential buyers. The two-storey hotel was built in 1898, just five years after the discovery of gold at Kalgoorlie. It takes its name from the 19th-Century Cornish miners who flooded into WA during the gold rush and built the pub from locally quarried stone. Real estate agent James Brennan described the nine-bedroom hotel as a unique piece of Goldfields history, but concedes the interior of the building "needs a lot of love". He said a mining company in need of workers' accommodation could be a potential buyer as the city faced ongoing accommodation shortages. "A property like this, it needs the right owner, someone who can bring it back to its former glory," he said. "It really is hard to put a price on that history, and obviously it's a beautiful building … heritage does scare people at times, but there's definitely been a lot of interest." Pub's famous link to murders The Cornwall Hotel's most famous former licensee was Evan Clarke, who turned King's evidence following the brutal murders of detectives Inspector John Walsh and Sergeant Alexander Pitman, who were after gold thieves, in 1926. It was rumoured that following the murders, the bodies were taken to the hotel where they were dismembered before being set alight and thrown down disused mineshafts. It was purchased in 1927 by the family of Jack Osmetti, a well-known local sportsman who ran the pub for around 50 years. The hotel was badly damaged by fire during Kalgoorlie's 1934 race riots and again by a magnitude-5 earthquake in 2010, but has been extensively repaired. Negotiations with insurers resulted in the building being propped up and fenced off for four years, until matters were finally settled in 2014. The owners then applied and were granted $992,090 from the state government's $5 million Goldfields Earthquake Restoration Fund, but structural repairs did not begin until 2016. Stonemason's old watering hole In the era when the Cornwall Hotel was built, stonemasons constructed enduring public and commercial buildings by combining cheap, highly skilled manual labour with traditional lime mortars and hand-dressed masonry. Today, retired Kalgoorlie stonemason Ken Ball reckoned his occupation of 55 years was a "dying trade" and the demise of historic buildings was a sign of the times. "I've got a lot of good memories here," he said, standing outside the Cornwall Hotel. "I did a lot of work at the old Boulder cemetery, so I would often stop in for a drink on the way home … obviously not since the earthquake, though. "It's a shame to see beautiful old buildings like this wasting away, and you'd love to see them get a new lease on life, but finding tradesmen is hard enough, let alone heritage-qualified tradesmen." Heritage projects 'astronomically harder' The City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder offers grants of up to $50,000 to private owners of heritage-listed buildings, but there has been little uptake in recent years. While WA's shortage of skilled tradies is well documented, Kalgoorlie builder Tim Matthew said heritage projects were "astronomically harder" and typically required the use of a specialised heritage architect. "Even if you had an infinite budget, most builders I know don't have the time to spend weeks and weeks researching the heritage requirements," he said. "And honestly, some of these grants don't scratch the surface to do anything meaningful." Mr Matthew said a recent heritage project he consulted on was an historic WA pub seeking a roof replacement, which would involve replacing karri timber used for structural beams in the roof. But karri timber has become much more expensive and harder to source since the WA government banned commercial native forest logging. "Heritage projects are typically 100 per cent like-for-like replacement … if you use the wrong bolt that's a problem," he said. Heritage must find relevancy Eastern Goldfields Historical Society life member Scott Wilson said it was important heritage buildings in Kalgoorlie-Boulder were preserved for future generations, but they needed to remain functional as well. "We would support anyone going down the road of heritage grants because it is an arduous process," he said. "Whether that is a mining company renovating it for workforce accommodation, or someone turning it back into a pub, it needs to stay relevant." That relevancy could come down to simple dollars and cents and what is possible in the current market. A spokesperson for Heritage Minister Simone McGurk said more than $27 million had been awarded to nearly 930 projects since 1997, and a "high number" of development applications continued to be received.