More than 100 years since it was built in 1918, the St Amand Hotel on The Strand is having a new lease of life breathed into it.

Today’s St Amand Hotel building is the same building that stood in 1918, which replaced the initial building that was destroyed in a fire in 1916.

Owned by husband and wife Sarah Meadows and Matt Young, who operate the buildings upper level backpackers – Wanderlust – they say St Amand has had “a huge amount of history going through it”.

Staging Post Hotel

“It was originally a five-star hotel, which serviced the high-end clientele that came down on horse and carts from Auckland,” says Matt.

“They stayed there and had butler and waitress service.

“Typically they were moving south and going down to the see the Rotorua Lakes so it was a sort of staging post hotel.

"There were three of them in town and [St Amand’s] the only one that’s left.”

The building is listed as a Category 2 historic heritage place by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

“It’s got a lot of really cool historical features throughout the building,” says Matt.

These include the rimu staircase and the building’s front façade, which is believed to be designed in a Stripped Classical style.

Husband and wife, Matt Young and Sarah Meadows, have renovated St Amand Hotel after buying it in 2019. Photo: Brydie Thompson.

Covid construction

The couple bought the building in 2019, with Sarah saying the renovation process was “very stressful” as it was carried out through Covid-19.

“We just didn’t want to see the building red-stickered,” says Sarah.

“So we worked extremely hard over the last four years to produce a five-star hostel and an incredible event space that hopefully Tauranga will be proud of,” says Sarah.

A big part of the renovation process was the earthquake strengthening, where they took the earthquake rating from 19 per cent to 67 per cent.

“We had to cut holes in the floor to start with and put 12 in-situ walls – concrete and steel walls,” says Matt.

“So we dug up by hand shovel and wheelbarrow and we had to dig up 80m3 of soil from underneath it around where the foundations were.

“There was a layer of soil, maybe a couple of feet down, where that whole area had burned down in 1916.

"So we actually dug through the burn land.

"There’s a lot of artefacts all through it.

"We had to have the iwi on-site as well as we dug down looking in case we ran into [human] skeleton remains.

“We didn’t run into any of those but we found lots of animal bones.”

The entire bottom half of the hotel was refurbished to create the St Amand Events Venue. Photo: supplied.

Events Venue

The lower level of the historical building has been completely remodelled and refurbished into a unique functions space – St Amand Events Venue.

“We wanted it like it would be back in the 1920s period,” says Sarah.

“So we’ve got big chandeliers, gold, we’ve got a built in press tin ceiling and a bar from end to the other.”

The venue has already played host to private and community events this year and is part of Flavours of Plenty in April.

“We thought how wonderful it would be to have all the locals remember their times drinking at the pub up there back in the day.

“It’s more the emotional connection that lots of our guests had as well when they came through over the years,” says Matt.

“They just fell in love with the building and fell in love with being there.

“It’s got a lot of character and a great feel about it.”

As part of the Jazz festival St Amand Events Venue will host a ‘Speakeasy Supper’ on March 29-31, from 6.45pm-10pm. For tickets, visit: jazz.org.nz