Newspaper Article 1982 – Old hotel to be pulled down

Old hotel to be pulled down

The old two-storey Greenmeadows Hotel – believed to be 90 years old – is to be demolished next month.

Part of the building now stands on the widened area of Gloucester St, and completion of the road widening work has been held up until the old building goes.

The building formerly the Waverley Hotel, has not been used since the Greenmeadows became a tavern six years ago.

Earliest records in the Hawke’s Bay museum library show the existence of the Waverley Hotel in 1893, with Mr L.G. Binnie as proprietor, in a listing of the Napier and Hawke’s Bay directory.

The East Coast and Hawke’s Bay directory of 1896 lists the Waverley, with C. Siddells as Mine Host.

The Hawke’s Bay Art Gallery and Museum society president, Mr Len Davis, who was raised in the area, recalls the hotel being there in his earliest memories.

And the Taradale town district 50th jubilee booklet, published in 1936, pictured the Waverley Hotel, with Mr Jack Fuszard as proprietor.

The Fuszard family are known to have run the hotel for about 30 years, and were followed by the Louisson family who operated it for more than 20 years before its purchase by brewery interests about 10 years ago.

The hotel was the closest hostelry to the former Napier racecourse, now Anderson Park.

Licensee Mr Allan Jones said that at that time the old building was closed down and services to it cut off.

The more modern, single-storey sections of the tavern are set back from the street line along the front of the old building, and the Napier City Council has completed kerbing and channelling which stops metres short of a side wall of the old structure.

The tavern is getting a new bottle store, now under construction, and demolition of the old section, standing on the comer of Gloucester St and York Avenue will be started as soon as the new store is completed.

The two-storey block was the hotel’s accommodation wing.

Upgrading of Gloucester St has been a long job for the Napier City Council, reaching back to when the highway route was changed from through Taradale Rd and Gloucester St to Waiohiki, to the motor way and Waiohiki Rd.

The National Roads Board, when it revoked the Highway 50 route from Gloucester St, admitted it had some commitment, toward reinstating the roadway to a good state after the heavy traffic of State highway loadings.

But the money supply tightened, and the work has still not been completed.

The south-eastern side of Gloucester St, from Auckland Rd along to Guppy Rd, was widened but still requires some re-shaping and strengthening.

And the opposite side still has the finishing where the old Greenmeadows Hotel wing is standing at the York Ave corner, to be done.

Widening through the next section, fronting the Greenmeadows shopping block, was completed several years ago.

Photo captions –

ABOVE: The 90-year-old Greenmeadows Hotel’s accommodation which is due for demolition next month to make way for road widening.

BELOW: The Waverley Hotel in 1936, showing the single-storey roughcast wing at right, added to the original building.