Adelaide is fortunate to have many of its original historic buildings. You can find them in the CBD, North Adelaide, surrounding suburbs, Tea Tree Gully and Port Adelaide area – just to name a few.
I love searching them out, discovering interesting little historic tit bits and, if I’m lucky, guided historic tours.
This time I’m going to share a bit about the Largs Pier Hotel, which opened in 1882 – one year before my next book, ‘The Department of Curiosities’, is set.
I’d been searching around the suburbs for somewhere to photograph the book covers for my upcoming series (three in all), and film some visuals for the book trailers. I get excited when I discover somewhere contemporary – even more so when it has many potential areas for differing vignettes and scenes. The Largs Pier Hotel was just such a treasure.
We’d attended a costume dinner (Gatsby/steampunk theme) there a few months earlier and was struck by the architecture and furnishing. The food was superb (so I knew where we were all going to have lunch during the day. Bonus!)
I rang the hotel a month before my planned photo shoot date to check they were okay with us descending on them and taking photos. Shelley was both friendly and helpful.
The day arrived. My models were dressed. We arrived at the hotel and introduced ourselves at the front desk.
We booked our table for lunch and got a most fantastic surprise. The manager had organised a room for us to use during the day, allowing us to store the model’s other outfits and my extra photo equipment until we needed them (and the models didn’t have to change in the toilets!)
And the room. Woah! Absolutely gorgeous. I may have plans to go back there for our wedding anniversary…
The views from the balcony were magnificent, across Largs Pier and the beach.
The Dixon Bar had some gorgeous Chesterfield couches and stunning decor…
The central staircase leads from the ground floor to the top… Perfect for photos.
Thank you to my models Felicity and Blake Canham-Bennett for bringing my charactes Tillie Meriwether and Professor Allington to life.
And a heartfelt thanks to Shelley and the staff at Largs Pier Hotel, for their patience and their hospitality. (And the food at the Pier Restaurant was great too!)
Lastly, congratulations are in order: The Largs Pier Hotel recently won the Mid-Range Hotel Accommodation award at the recent AHA/SA Hotel Industry Awards for Excellence.
Well done!
Photos ©2018 Karen Carlisle/ D Carlisle
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