Old hotel set for artistic rebirth

Love at first sight is easy to explain when the object of your affection is easy on the eye

When the thing you love is a 103-year-old building with boarded-up windows, floors thick with grime and rubble and a 20-year-old bee colony, not everyone can see the attraction.

Dance teacher Michele Cleaver-Wilkinson is one half of the Subiaco couple behind a plan to transform Perth's historic Newmarket Hotel into an arts hub and dance studio.

For her there were never any doubts about the potential of the heritage-listed Hamilton Hill site. "It's been love at first sight although with everyone who comes in I say 'keep positive, keep positive'," she said.

"The more you do the more you see what it's got to offer."

Built in 1912, the Newmarket was associated with the horse racing industry until the 1970s.

It has been derelict for about two decades.

Key to the plan being pursued by Mrs Cleaver-Wilkinson, who teaches at Karratha's Terre Rouge Ballet, and her husband Ian is a desire to build a place for Pilbara-based dancers to further their ballet studies.

"We want to create an artistic centre that everyone just wants to come to," she said.

"The building was once a pub but I think it's going to blossom as an artistic centre dance studio. Creating something is like creating a dance, it's the same thing."

The Swan River Ballet school planned for the former pub will be a sister school to TRB and the site will be renamed Hamilton House. It will include studios, bedrooms for visiting students and a teacher residence.

Source:  ABC News - 26th March 2015