The Warders Hotel currently consists of a block of historic limestone cottages built by prisoners in 1851 to house the staff who guarded them in the nearby Fremantle Prison.
The cottages form a 23-room boutique five-star hotel says co-owner, Tim Buckton, and currently under construction behind the cottages in an abandoned police headquarters is a new five-star development to be known as The Garde Hotel.
Garde will have 83 rooms and conference facilities. The existing three-storey ex-police HQ – not heritage listed – was gutted and another two floors added on top as part of the $30 million development.
Business Events Perth showed off the progress of on the Warders development to a group of PCOs being hosted in the WA capital last week.
Buckton says the new property will be complete by December as a full service hotel with a strong food and beverage offering and valet parking.
The existing hotel has already gained a cult following for its Emily Taylor restaurant which contains a popular dumpling business within a space that can seat 400. With the new hotel comes another restaurant Anglesea, named after a ship used to house prisoners until they completed building the local lock-up. There’s also Gimlet, a gin bar, already onsite as part of the Warders Hotel.
“We’re just a small operation at present but we believe there is demand for five-star accommodation in Fremantle, just as Perth has seen growth at the luxury end of the market,” Buckton said, adding that they had also taken over the 4.5 star Hougoumont hotel in Fremantle, launched in 2013 by local identity Patrick Prendiville.
Hougoumont is unique because it was constructed entirely from fully-fitted shipping containers imported ready to assemble Lego-style.
It was constructed relatively quickly behind a historic building façade off Fremantle’s cappuccino strip, and unless viewed from the back it is not obvious that stays are in shipping containers. It has 37 rooms, with plans for a further 65. Rooms as small as 15m2 are functional and fine for sleeping, and there is also a boardroom for 22 if meeting space is required.
