Nostalgia

The Grand View Hotel

The Grand View Hotel was built in 1851 by Francis Bigge and has been known as The Brighton Hotel and Cleveland House. Its original purpose was that of a Hotel or Inn and it was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.

History

The core of this complex of buildings was erected in the early 1850s for the Hon. Francis Edward Bigge, Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council, who purchased the site in August 1851.

 

Francis Bigge, a grazier from Mount Brisbane Station, was one of the leading lobbyists. In the early 1850s he invested heavily in industry and housing at Cleveland.

1

1852

The earliest section of the hotel, built as a prominent demonstration of confidence in Cleveland’s future development, appears to have been erected by 1852, but appears to have remained unoccupied for several years. Known colloquially as Bigge’s Folly, and formally as Cleveland House, it contained two sitting rooms and five bedrooms with a kitchen and servants’ rooms connected via a covered passageway. The core was surrounded by a 3-metre (9.8 ft) wide verandah.
2

1855 to 1860

From 1855 to 1860 John Vincent Cassim, a Kangaroo Point boarding house keeper, leased Cleveland House as a boarding establishment. Stabling, a coach-house, store and tap were erected in mid-1860. By 1862 the building had been leased by publican William Rae as the Brighton Hotel, with its own bathing-house and jetty, and 10-metric-ton (9.8-long-ton; 11-short-ton) pleasure cutter.
3

1874

The building also served as a venue for Anglican services prior to the construction of St Pauls Anglican Church nearby in 1874.
4

1878 to 1936

In 1878 the property was acquired by publicans Andrew and Mary Goodall, and the hotel appears to have been extended to the southeast. Major alterations that give the building its present two-storeyed form are likely to have been carried out in the late 1880s or mid-1890s, when the Cleveland railway line was opened to Cleveland Central and later extended to Cleveland Point. It became known as the Grand View Hotel c. 1910, and remained in the Goodall-Singh family until 1936.
5

1940s to 1992

Other outbuildings have been added since the 1940s. Five miniature, representational murals on the wall behind the public bar probably were painted in the 1950s, and the complex was renovated in 1982 and again in 1992.
6

1992 to 2019

The Grand View was owned from 1992 to 2019 by the Brock Family and Partners and then was sold in 2019 to a private hospitality company and is operated by Event Hotels & Resorts on behalf of the Owners.
7

Present Day

The Grand View continues to operate as a hotel, and is one of the oldest hotels in Queensland in continuous use.  The hotel currently houses a public bar, gaming lounge with 35 gaming machine entitlements, outdoor bar, garden restaurant, TAB, lounge bar, art gallery and function rooms.