Federal Coffee Palace

Federal Hotel and Coffee Palace
Federal Coffee Palace, 1890s
General information
Location	Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Address	555 Collins Street
Opening	27 July, 1888[1]
Demolished	1973
Cost	£150,000
Owner	Federal Coffee Palace Company
Management	Federal Coffee Palace Company
Height	165 ft (50 m)
Technical details
Floor count	9
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Ellerker & Kilburn in partnership with William Pitt
Developer	Federal Coffee Palace Company
Other information
Number of rooms	560
Number of suites	370

The Federal Coffee Palace was a large, elaborate French Second Empire style 560 room temperance hotel in the city centre of Melbourne, built between 1886 and 1888 at the height of the city's 1880s land boom, and demolished in 1972-73.^[2] Located on the corner of Collins and King streets, near Spencer Street station (the address is now 555 Collins Street), it is prominent in lists of the buildings Melburnians most regret having lost.^[3]

The Federal Coffee Palace was by far the largest and grandest product of the late 19th century temperance movement in the southern hemisphere. The Age wrote that the £150,000 hotel was one of "Australia's most splendid" buildings; in fact, it was "one of the largest and most opulent hotels in the world".^[4][5]

With seven main floors and two more in the corner tower, it was the most massive of the rash of large tall buildings built in the central city in the 1880s boom. The height to the top of the corner dome was 165 ft (50 m),^[6] its height to roof of 48m exceeded the 43m Fink's Building completed the previous year making it briefly Melbourne and Australia's tallest building until completion of the Australian Building in mid 1890, which measured 53m to the top of its corner spire.

In June 1885, the local businessmen and politicians James Mirams and James Munro established the Federal Coffee Palace Company, and announced their intention to issue £100,000 of shares to buy the plot on the corner of Collins and King streets, and build a seven-storey temperance hotel to the design of Tappin Gilbert and Dennehy, that would be 'the finest in the city'.^[7] In November 1885, perhaps not satisfied with that design, the Company held a competition, with 13 entries; the first prize was awarded to Ellerker & Kilburn, and the second to William Pitt,^[8][9] who then worked together to design 'the massive edifice'^[10] (the exterior was probably much as Ellerker & Kilburn designed it, since Pitt's exterior design of tall plain elevations survives in a drawing held at the State Library of Victoria). It was designed in an eclectic style, with an array of Renaissance Revival details and French Second Empire style mansard roofs^[11]

The builders were T. Cockram and W. Comely.^[11] Construction began in early 1886,^[12] and it opened in July 1888,^[13] in time for Melbourne's Centennial Exhibition, which opened at the Exhibition Buildings on 1 August.

The building had 560 rooms in total.^[11] It also featured impressively appointed dining and entertaining rooms. The hotel had 370 guest bedrooms, with a penthouse suite in the tower at the top of the building. The construction took five million bricks and cost £110,000.^[14] The building was serviced by a passenger lift, one of Melbourne's earliest which was popular with visitors.^[11]

The Federal Coffee Palace opened in time for Melbourne's Centennial Exhibition in July 1888.^[4] The first floors included billiards, dining, lounging, reading, and smoking rooms.^[4][5] Its decor was so unique that the building became a tourist attraction.^[4] Its upper five floors included nearly 400 luxury bedrooms.^[5] The Age wrote that the £150,000 hotel was one of "Australia's most splendid" buildings; in fact, it was "one of the largest and most opulent hotels in the world".^[4][5]

The boom soon turned into the economic crash of the early 1890s, and the Federal struggled to make dividends for its investors. In 1897 the Federal gained a wine licence, and changed its name to the Federal Palace Hotel,^[15] and in 1923 after years of attempts, it finally became fully licensed.^[16]

Many of the interiors rooms were modernised in the interwar period including the dining room which was to be insulated with asbestos fibre for soundproofing in 1936.^[17]

The Federal was listed in 1948 as one of the key sites for the modernisation of Melbourne.^[18] The site, along with the adjoining Australian Estate Company wool store, was purchased for £78,500 and earmarked for replacement with a new modern hotel building,^[18] however the new hotel construction did not proceed. The owners would instead attempt to modernise some of the bars and accommodation.

Some minor modifications had taken place by the 1950s, including the removal of iron cresting and the widow's walks on the mansard roofs, truncation of the chimneys, the enlarging of the top floor circular windows into taller ones, and the insertion of small windows into the main pediments. Most of the building's original gargoyles were also removed, though the statuary remained. A mezannine was added to some of the function rooms resulting in the large arched window bays on the lower King Street frontage lower floors being converted into square windows. During this period a large 'Federal' neon sign was added to the Collins Street corner facade in addition to a large lettered 'Hotel Federal' sign on the corner. The entire external facade had also been painted dark grey with white trims.

The International-style Southern Cross Hotel in Bourke Street was completed in 1962, and the proliferation of suburban hotels and motels in the 1950s and 60s was eating into of the business from the old grand city hotels such as the Menzies, Federal, Windsor and Scotts. Photos from the Wolfang Sievers Collection show that by 1965 the reception lobby^[19] and some reception rooms had been completely or partly modernised, along with most of the accommodation rooms, in an effort to compete. The huge Victorian era vestibule however remained intact.^[20]

The Australian Women's Weekly featured a 1967 article on socialite Peter Janson who leased the vacant upper levels and converted them into an expansive apartment in 1967 including a bedroom in the dome of the tower with an attic window from which the entire city centre could be viewed and a rooftop courtyard garden.^[21]

The Federal was designed in an eclectic style, with an array of Renaissance Revival details and French Second Empire style mansard roofs^[11] Ellerker & Kilburn designed the building with multiple setbacks to relieve its great bulk whilst making an impressive visual statement with the lofty corner dome. The setbacks were punctuated by a mixture of recessed and projected balconies, forming a loggia arcade near the base, and large vertical classical temple-like structures. The external stucco facade combined a staggering array of distinctive decorative features of the period. The main entrance was paired giant order ionic columns in a large Paladian arrangement. Other external features included extensive use of diocletian windows, festooned round windows, baroque styled broken and nested pediments complete with detailed reliefs, pilasters, balustered balconies, oriel windows, keystones, niches, sculptured statuary, curved walls, cast iron lacework and cresting. The building also featured several gargoyles which were later removed, including lions and gryphons on the upper storeys.

The interiors were equally impressive, often attributed to William Pitt featured a huge sunlit, four storey lobby with vaulted roof and grand staircase, and a main hall reached via a long arcade loggia of 14 Ionic columns.^[11] The elaborately detailed interior atrium featured giant order composite columns culminating in a Palladian architecture styled arch flanked by vault archway openings.

Skyscrapers by contemporary definition are 10 storeys tall and exceed 50 metres. The Federal at 9 storeys narrowly misses the criteria for floors but qualified for height when the tower is included. It had a 7 storey height to roof of 156 ft (48 m) and to the additional 2 storey habitable tower of 165 ft (50 m) making it briefly Melbourne and Australia's tallest building, exceeding Fink's Building (43m) in 1888 and until completion of the Australian Building (53m) in mid 1890.^[22]

Despite the lack of a steel frame, and partly due to tall ceilings, its height to roof was also among the highest in the world for a habitable building in 1888. Contemporary skyscrapers in New York and Chicago were not much taller. The Federal was just five metres short of New York's tallest hotel, the 1884 Hotel Chelsea. It was just a few metres shorter than some of North America's tallest office buildings, just one metre less than the 1887 Wilder Building, five metres less than the Rookery Building completed the same year and nine metres shorter than the 1886 Potter Building, considered among the earliest steel framed skyscrapers. It would have been dwarfed by very few including the tallest towers in the world, the 1875 New York Tribune Building and 1885 Chicago Board of Trade Building (but would have almost reached its roof) as well as the 12-storey Washington Building of 1887, which was 67 metres (220 ft) to the roof.

Its guests included Alexander Graham Bell, Herbert Hoover and Mark Twain.^[4]

Facade detail prior to demolition, still largely intact.

Street view prior to demolition.

Federal Hotels P/L, seeking funds to develop Hobart's Wrest Point Casino sold it to developers Artagen Property Group (a subsidiary of a London based company) in 1971 for $3.7 million.^[23] Closure and demolition for a $12 million 23 storey office development was announced, commencing March 1972^[23] and completed in 1973.

Unlike many other historic buildings in the city the National Trust did not list the Federal and chose not to oppose the demolition, at the time it was concerned mainly with preserving of earlier colonial era buildings and houses,^[24] though in 1971 it had listed the nearby much smaller 1890 Olderfleet in response to its acquisition by developers, one of few similar type of buildings to be Trust listed. No green ban was attempted.

Disinterest in preservation of the Federal can be explained in part by its failure to compete as hotel accommodation despite attempts at modernisation and the stark contrast of the patchwork interiors between the modern and remaining Victorian features. According to historian Robyn Annear elaborate Victorian buildings were “really on the nose” and the Federal's creaky floorboards and lack of ensuites were an "extreme embarrassment" in a city desperate for progress in the late 1960s and early 1970s.^[25] However it was mostly due to its prominent association with the speculative land boom. Elaborate buildings including the Federal were painted in a negative light at the time as they were constructed speculatively with excessively large amounts of borrowed funds many of which were never paid back. In particular, the association with James Munro carried with it strong links to the city's total economic collapse and corruption prior to the Australian banking crisis of 1893. Michael Cannon's influential 1966 book 'Land Boomers' was frequently cited as justifications to rid Melbourne of the embarrassment of the land boom era, his book had whole chapters dedicated to the speculative financial backing behind the Federal Coffee Palace.^[26]

In response to public regret of the demolition of the Federal and other significant buildings at the time including the Menzies, the Historic buildings act 1974 and Historic Buildings Preservation Council were introduced.^[27] Ironically justifications cited for not saving the Federal were used to support the preservation of the Windsor just years later, the Windsor's preservation benefiting from its proximity to Parliament and the new laws introduced following the demolition of the Menzies, Federal and others which saw the Windsor become the last surviving luxury hotel of the Victorian era.

Some elements of the building were carefully removed by Whelan the Wrecker; three of the four female statues by modeller Charles William Scurry were relocated to the then new Chateau Commodore in Lonsdale Street, and when that changed hands over 20 years later, they were donated to the McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery in Langwarrin outside Frankston, Victoria in 1996, and a panel of the cast-iron stair balustrade (with 'FCP' in the pattern) was donated by Myles Whelan to the Museum of Victoria in 1992.

The Federal's replacement, the 23 storey Enterprise House was completed by 1975.

In 2017 approval to replace Enterprise Houes with a 46 level hotel and apartment tower was granted.^[28] In 2019 the design changed to a 35 level office building with retail at ground level.^[29]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Federal Coffee Palace.

• Architecture of Melbourne
• Coffee palace
• Photos taken in 1972 by Graeme Butler shortly before demolition on Flickr
• List of demolished buildings and structures in Melbourne