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Most guests walk past the corner of Elizabeth and Albert Streets without giving the building a second look. Brisbane has a habit of that. But stand across the road and take it in properly, and you are looking at one of the more remarkable buildings in the city, and one of the oldest stories in Brisbane commerce.
In June 1860, William Perry and his brother George stepped off a ship in Brisbane with plans to open a hardware business. Their brother Frederick followed. By the middle of August that year, the Brisbane Courier was carrying an advertisement for Perry Brothers, wholesale and retail ironmongers of Queen Street, offering the essentials of colonial life: bullock bows, horse shoes, files and saws, putty, pitch and tar, American stoves.
Brisbane in 1860 was barely a year into being the capital of a brand new colony. It was a town of a few thousand people, unpaved streets and enormous ambition. The Perrys had timed it well. The business thrived, and by 1865 they had built fine new premises on Elizabeth Street, on the sites now occupied by the Henkelmann's Building and the Irish Club.
When William Perry died in 1891, his eldest son Herbert was 27. He and his brother George took on the business their father and uncles had built, and almost immediately ran into the worst decade Brisbane had seen. The economic slump of the 1890s arrived alongside the record floods of 1893, which put much of the city under water.
They held on. By the turn of the century the business was thriving again, and by 1910 the Perry brothers were ready to mark fifty years in Brisbane with something permanent.
On 13 August 1910, Perry Brothers announced the construction of Perry House on the corner of Elizabeth and Albert Streets. Work began in 1911 and was not finished until early 1913, held up repeatedly by strikes.
When it was done, Perry House was the tallest building in Brisbane. The city watched it go up with genuine fascination. Every floor was given over to the Perry Brothers business, warehousing and trade. An extra storey was added in 1923.
Here is the detail that still surprises people: Perry House is believed to be the tallest timber structure in the southern hemisphere built on wooden foundations. More than a century on, the building is still standing on them.
Perry House spent the following decades as a commercial building, and during the Second World War it was taken over by the US Military, one of thousands of Brisbane buildings absorbed into the war effort when the city became a major Allied base in the Pacific.
It was not until 1996, after a substantial redevelopment, that the heritage listed Perry House reopened as the Royal Albert Hotel.
The redevelopment kept what mattered. Guests today walk down corridors far wider than anything a modern build would allow, under 12 foot ceilings finished with original ceiling roses and cornicing. The proportions of a 1913 warehouse turn out to make unusually generous hotel rooms. Our Deluxe Hotel Rooms are 49 square metres, among the largest in Brisbane, and the sub-penthouse apartments run to 130.
Two collections give the hotel its character. The first is the Royal Albert fine china the hotel takes its name from. The second is the largest collection of original oil paintings by William Torrance, an artist best described as applying the impressionists' lessons in colour and light to Australian land and seascapes, and to maritime scenes in particular. They are worth slowing down for on your way to the lift.
The Royal Albert now has 73 guest rooms, from Deluxe Hotel Rooms through to One and Two Bedroom Suites and the Sub-Penthouse Apartments on the upper floors. All were refurbished to reflect the heritage of the building, with mahogany furniture and plush fabrics chosen to suit the rooms rather than fight them.
One hundred and sixty six years after three brothers opened an ironmongers on Queen Street, the building that carries their name is still one of the busiest addresses in the Brisbane CBD. Not bad for a hardware shop.
Book your stay at the Royal Albert Hotel, in the heart of the Brisbane CBD.
