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Imperial Hotel

The two-storey rendered brick Imperial Hotel stands on the north-west corner of Bourke and Spring streets. By 1864 Nathaniel Levi had developed the hotel to include a bar and 12 rooms, probably from shops that he owned that had been built on the site of the Salle de Valentino, an early wooden theatre. One of a family of wine and spirit merchants, Levi became the first Jew to gain a seat in the Victorian Parliament and was the founder and first president (1893) of the Chamber of Manufacturers. Another 14 rooms were added in 1868, extending the hotel north to Turnbull Alley. The hotel steadily incorporated neighbouring Bourke Street stores, finally integrating Number 8 in 1955 to reach its present size. The Imperial, with the Old White Hart Hotel on the other side of Bourke Street, marked the eastern gateway to the city and featured in many early photographs. Stripped of much of its original exterior decoration and internally renovated, the hotel still retains its 19th-century form and scale in the landscape.

Chrystopher J. Spicer