QHA_March 2018_Electronic_s

COMPASS
Wikimedia Commons: Lobster 1
IMPERIAL HOTEL
QHA REVIEW | 50
Built by hotelier James Delaney in 1902, the multicoloured
brick construction of the Imperial Hotel stands
out among the town’s sparse dwellings, sheds and old
industrial chimneys like a venerable over-dressed visitor.
But as one of the town’s oldest residents, it draws in a
steady stream of visitors of its own.
If the exterior isn’t eye-catching enough, inside is
one of the most amazingly preserved Edwardian era
hotels in the country. The building retains almost all
of its original fabric and the interior layout along with
furniture, fittings and minor items of hotel equipment
that the Delaney family carefully preserved over most
of the twentieth century. The ground floor contains the
bars, dining room and furniture and fittings, a nicely
modernised billiard room and table, kitchen, store
rooms and office. Bedrooms, bathroom facilities and
verandas with cast iron balustrading rule the roost
upstairs.
The “Impy” has been owned for the last 18 years by
John and Dianne Schluter who moved there from
Mareeba where John taught maths and Dianne
worked in pharmacy.
“Retiring here to meet so many different people with so
many stories has been great,” John says.
In addition to the hotel’s history and grandeur, he’s
noticed many visitors have been drawn by its notorious
paranormal activity – particularly in room 12A.