Regatta Hotel, Brisbane
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Coronation Drive, Brisbane
Coronation Drive , popularly known as Coro Drive, is a road in Brisbane, Queensland which connects the Central Business District to the suburb of Toowong...
and Sylvan Road in Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. It is located in the suburb of Toowong
Toowong, Queensland
Toowong is an inner suburb of Brisbane, Australia which is located 5 km west of the Brisbane CBD. At the centre of Toowong is a commercial precinct including Toowong Village and several office buildings...
and faces the Brisbane River
Brisbane River
The Brisbane River is the longest river in south east Queensland, Australia, and flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay. John Oxley was the first European to explore the river who named it after the Governor of New South Wales, Thomas Brisbane in 1823...
. The three-storey hotel contained accommodation on the upper two floors and a public bar and lounge area on the ground floor. The pub has been progressively renovated between 2001 and 2004 and converted into trendy modern bars and nightclubs. A famous protest took place in the public bar in 1965, when two women, Merle Thornton (mother of Australian actress Sigrid Thornton
Sigrid Thornton
Sigrid Thornton is an Australian multi-award winning actress.-Early years:Thornton was born in Canberra, the daughter of Merle, a teacher of women's studies and writer, and Neil Thornton, an academic. She spent most of her formative years growing up and attending school at St. Peter's Lutheran...
) and Rosalie Bognor, chained themselves to the bar in protest of Queensland's restriction of public bars to men only.
The first hotel was established on the site in 1874, as a single-storey wooden building. The present building was designed by Richard Gailey
Richard Gailey
Richard Gailey, Sr. was an Irish-born Australian architect.Gailey was born in Donegal, Ireland and emigrated to Australia in 1864, becoming an influential and prolific architect in colonial-era Brisbane...
and erected in 1886. The hotel was refurbished in 1981. The Regatta Hotel is classified by the National Trust of Queensland and was entered in the Queensland Heritage Register in 1992. The Regatta Hotel has also been entered into the Register of the National Estate of Australian Heritage Commission.