Palace Hotel, Broken Hill
| Palace Hotel | |
|---|---|
 | |
  Location within New South Wales  Location within Australia | |
| 31°57′35″S 141°27′50″E / 31.9598°S 141.4638°E | |
| Location | 227 Argent Street, Broken Hill, City of Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia |
| History | |
| Built | 1889 |
| Site notes | |
Architectural style | Victorian Filigree |
Official name | Palace Hotel; Mario's Hotel; Marios |
| Type | state heritage (built) |
| Designated | 2 April 1999 |
| Reference no. | 335 |
Type | Hotel |
Category | Commercial |
Palace Hotel, originally built as Broken Hill Coffee Palace, is a heritage-listed pub at 227 Argent Street, Broken Hill, City of Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia. It has also been known as the Mario's Hotel and Mario's.
The Palace Hotel was in many of the scenes in the 1994 Australian comedy-drama film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register in April 1999, with the entry expanded in January 2025 to reflect its importance to LGBTQIA+ history.
History
[edit]The hotel was originally built as a coffee palace by local members of the temperance movement, as the Broken Hill Coffee Palace. It was designed by Melbourne architect Alfred Dunn and built in 1889 at a cost of £12,190, opening on 18 December that year.[1][2]
The coffee palace was not a financial success, running at a loss for its first three years. In July 1892, media reports indicated the company and lessees were "stone broke".[3] In that month, the lessee applied for and was granted a liquor license, at which time it was renamed the Palace Hotel.[4][5]
Around 1980, the owner at the time, Mario Celotto, painted a mural of Botticelli's Venus on a ceiling. He later paid Gordon Waye, an Indigenous artist from Port Augusta, to paint all the other mostly landscape themed murals in the hotel, making the hotel a tourist attraction.[6]
The 1994 Australian comedy-drama film, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, filmed many of its Broken Hill scenes in the Palace Hotel, which producer Al Clark described as "drag queen heaven". The movie describes the hotel's murals as "tack-o-rama".[7]
In 2009, Esther La Rovere bought the hotel. By this time, there were many international tourists visiting the pub because of the film.[8]
Heritage listing
[edit]Palace Hotel was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register in April 1999.[9] The listing was updated in January 2025, so that it "recognises the vibrant LGBTQIA+ history that has flourished within its walls", after it had become a "symbolic meeting place", and become part of people's coming-out stories.[8]
References
[edit]- ↑ "History". The Palace Hotel Broken Hill. Retrieved 25 June 2018.
- ↑ "BROKEN HILL". Adelaide Observer. Vol. XLVI, no. 2516. South Australia. 21 December 1889. p. 19. Retrieved 25 June 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
- ↑ "Yesterday's Brevities". Evening News. No. 7842. New South Wales, Australia. 20 July 1892. p. 6. Retrieved 25 June 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
- ↑ "Licensing Court". Barrier Miner. Vol. 5, no. 1347. New South Wales, Australia. 20 July 1892. p. 3. Retrieved 25 June 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
- ↑ "Advertising". Barrier Miner. Vol. 5, no. 1328. New South Wales, Australia. 28 June 1892. p. 4. Retrieved 25 June 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
- ↑ Wainwright, Sofie (21 March 2017). "Broken Hill's iconic Palace Hotel, featured in film Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, up for private sale". ABC News. Archived from the original on 12 February 2019. Retrieved 13 February 2019.
- ↑ Wadsworth, Kimberly (30 May 2014). "Shrines of Obsession: The Real-World Locations of 11 Cult Films". Atlas Obscura. Archived from the original on 12 February 2019. Retrieved 13 February 2019.
- 1 2 Power, Julie (2 January 2025). "NSW heritage listing welcomes LGBTQI hotspot, iron works and revamped building". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 3 January 2025. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
- ↑ "Palace Hotel". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning and Environment. H00335. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
Attribution
[edit]
This Wikipedia article was originally based on Palace Hotel, entry number 00335 in the New South Wales State Heritage Register published by the State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) 2018 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 1 June 2018.
External links
[edit]
Media related to Palace Hotel, Broken Hill at Wikimedia Commons
- Official website
- The Palace Hotel, Broken Hill at Visitnsw.com
- Appel, Greg (11 July 2021). "Broken Hill's Palace Hotel has welcomed gamblers, miners and drags queens throughout its long history". ABC Radio National. Australian Broadcasting Corporation.