Hotel Windsor to offer butlers $20,000 penthouses
Melbourne’s historic Hotel Windsor is getting a complete $350 million makeover as a six star accommodation.
When it’s finished, the 133 year old hotel will have a three-level royal penthouse with its own private lift access, a spa and outdoor terraces overlooking Parliament House. There'll also be a three-bedroom presidential penthouse with a private library, home cinema, spa and cellar. Plus outdoor terraces overlooking Parliament and Fitzroy Gardens.
And it will boast two three-level penthouses costing $20,000 a night, perfect for Chinese high rollers.
That will include a massive 745 square metre presidential penthouse.
It will sit atop the new glitzy 26-storey tower to be built behind the existing heritage building on Spring Street.
A $200 million building contract for Obayashi Corporation and Built will see the addition of almost 100 rooms to the grand, ageing hotel.
The tower will take the number of suites to 279.
Work on the project will start early next year with plans for completion by the end of 2019.
The Halim family bought the hotel in 2005. At one stage, they threatened to close it down if they were not granted an extension to the 2010 building permit. They finally got it in March this year when the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal stepped in.
Hotel Windsor director Adi Halim said the refurbishment would put the Windsor on the same level as other six star resorts and hotels in Australia like the Southern Ocean Lodge in Kangaroo Island, Capella Lodge on Lord Howe Island, the Saffire Freycinet in Tasmania, and Perth COMO the Treasury.
"They're all boutique hotels that aren't really part of a chain, except COMO the Treasury. I think that means they can be more individual,’’ Halim told the Huffington Post.
And six star, he said, had a certain look.
“It's not gold taps and old school glitz and glam. Six star is more about reflecting the location with something individual and authentic,’’ he said.
He said the Windsor’s secret courtyard would set it apart.
"It's not what you expect, this courtyard space in an inner-city hotel,’’ he said.
by Leon Gettler, November 18th 2016
