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Richardson's Hotel

Located on the north-east corner of Bourke and Russell streets, this hotel was first built in 1846 as the Australia Felix Hotel for Robert Sawyer and rebuilt in 1860 for Charles Downie with an upper-floor dance hall called the Alhambra (later the Alfred Hall). From 1884 it was owned by Esteban Morell and became known as Morell's Hotel. James Richardson, a young Scottish barman from the Old White Hart Hotel, became friends with Morell, who in 1893 financed Richardson's lease of Morell's Hotel. Within six years Richardson had purchased the freehold and moved in to live on the top floor. By 1932 he owned and administered eight other city hotels: Hosie's Hotel, the Alexander (later the Savoy), the Kerry Family, the Exchange, the Town Hall, the Cosmopolitan, the Cathedral and the London. After Richardson's death in 1951, the building was purchased by the National Bank, opening as a branch in 1956. It was classified by the National Trust in 1991.

Chrystopher J. Spicer