Owners breathe new life into derelict Collie hotel

When the Colliefields Hotel shut its doors in 2002 the 115-year-old pub became a time capsule of decades gone by.

Picture by David Bailey: Colliefields Hotel owner Michele Gannaway has the huge task of renovating the dilapidated building.

The rules of eight-ball and 80s beer ads are still stuck to the wall, a sign above the bar warns punters ‘‘Banks don’t serve beer so we don’t cash cheques’’ and a disco ball hangs idle and dusty—but not for much longer.

The once bustling hotel is getting a facelift.

After losing its licence 10 years ago, then-owner Nancy Hall boarded herself inside for five years before she was committed to a mental health facility and, not long after, died.

Nancy’s daughter, Michele Gannaway, along with her husband, Gary, have moved in to renovate the ageing building.

Mrs Gannaway said she had ‘‘inherited the problem and was paying for the solution’’.

‘‘Nancy had 15 dogs and seven pups when she was moved out,’’ she said.

‘‘People used to bang on the windows as they walked past to rile up the dogs — it was no wonder Nancy became paranoid.

‘‘When I first started working on the place a few years ago it was very manky and stunk of the dogs.’’

The Colliefields Hotel was built in 1897 in response to the booming demand of the timber and coal industries and was one of the first pubs in the area.

Mrs Gannaway admitted the hotel had been shrouded in controversy during the period when Nancy was the licensee.

‘‘I put publican on her death certificate but she would be rolling over in her grave, she thought of herself as a businesswoman,’’ she said.

After attempts to sell the run-down hotel, Mrs Gannaway said she decided to return the crumbling building to its former glory.

The couple are pushing ahead with plans to add two terrace houses at the back of the building, a gourmet provedore, a brasserie and reopened the accommodation last weekend.

Mrs Gannaway said the pair wanted to move away from the pub image and would rename the building The Colliefields.

‘‘It will never be a pub again,’’ she said.

‘‘We have tried to keep bits of the place where we can so we hold onto the history of the place but Collie already has enough pubs.’’

Unable to gain government funding for the renovations because the hotel is not on the State Register of Heritage Places, the couple have been undertaking much of the work themselves.

‘‘To bring a heritage building back takes time and money,’’ Mrs Gannaway said.

Mrs Gannaway was thrilled to book the hotel’s first customer at the weekend.

‘‘It will be good to start making some of the money we have put into this place,’’ she said.