1880 - 1926

In 1880, in Bondi’s sandblasted south, the Cliff House Hotel opened its doors to day-trippers, beginning a pattern of beach-orientated buildings along the landward length of the rough track that was Campbell Parade.

The Cliff House, at the corner of Sir Thomas Mitchell Rd, preceded today’s Astra building. It was first leased to Frenchman Jean Baptiste Boyer on the agreement that owner John Heinz install and fund a gas lamp outside the hotel for two years.

Ownership changed in 1886, with John Charles Dunlop going into liquidation in 1889, attributing the demise to Waverley’s rough roads and the nearby Royal Aquarium Hotel receiving a liquor licence.

The Cliff House was open again by 1891 with newspaper reports revealing: ‘The body of a man named John Smith, 56, had been discovered on a landing.’ Later, Francis Leukert was charged with selling liquor without a licence.

Trade boomed in 1894 when the Bondi Beach tram was extended. The first arrived at 7.05am with many bathers on board.

By 1896, the hotel had become a meeting place for emerging water sports clubs, including the Bondi Swimming Club. Hotel owner Charles Lawes hosted the club’s annual concert and prizegiving that year, with newspapers reporting: ‘Some clever lightning sketches by [artist] D. H. Souter elicited loud applause.’

In the year before he died in 1899, former NSW MP and unionist Thomas Davis was the licensee.

The hotel was again in the news in 1901 when the well-known boxer Otto Cribb was found dead in bed after suffering concussion in a fight the previous evening.

Another death was recorded at the Cliff House in 1903 when the lifeless body of Essie Cameron, who had been playing piano upstairs, was found.

In 1914, plans were lodged for an extension, one of the earliest by the prolific hotel architect of the early 20th century E. Lindsay Thompson.

In April 1919, the brewer Edmund Resch applied for a permit to erect a hotel further along Campbell Parade and, on its completion, the Cliff House licence was transferred to the new Hotel Bondi, which opened on November 18, 1920. The Cliff House was demolished soon after.

Images courtesy of the Waverley Library Local Studies Collection.