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66 Queen Street, Grahams, Auckland
Even this 1882 Italianate Hotel building does not demonstrate the depth of history associated with this site here on the corner of Fort Street, as it is essentially at the very heart of the earliest days of Auckland.
Ngati Whatua o Orakei had long frequented 'Commercial Bay' even before Europeans arrived, and this exact spot was actually the beachfront. When commerce, initially between Ngati Whatua and the new arrivals commenced about 1840, land was reclaimed and the foreshore moved eastward. A range of important buildings were erected in this vicinity and amongst them a timber hotel called the Metropolitan.
The site was sound so the Metropolitan was rebuilt with brewery backing in 1883, in brick, amongst a building boom of larger, grander buildings. The architect, Edward Mahoney, designed all the Italianate features which still grace it's double frontage today. Soon after it was renamed the imperial and went through various other changes in direction over the following century, but never deviating from it's main purpose of selling liquor.
Upstairs, the rooms are currently configured as the Queen Street Backpackers, while nearby Hotel deBrett represents yet another wave of renewal, having been upgraded into a design hotel.
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