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Eichardt’s Private Hotel
The hotel is situated at one of New Zealand’s most exclusive lakefront addresses
By: Mary Gostelow
Queenstown is a delight - the sun was shining brightly as I flew in from Auckland. I dropped my bag and wandered through town, the center of which can be covered in ten minutes flat (it takes much longer if you want to cover all the steep-incline mountains immediately around).
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I stopped at PJ's for fish and chips, in tempura batter, lovely big fries, mushy peas, NZ$7.50. Walking back, I stopped in a juice shop and had a ‘Feel Me’ made to order (broccoli, carrot and beetroot juice), NZ$5.50. I felt good.
Eichardt’s Private Hotel, named for its founder, Albert Eichardt, is across a narrow road from Queenstown Bay, part of Lake Wakatipu, one of the South Island of New Zealand's premier year-round tourist destinations. November to April is summer, ideal for serious hiking. June to September is ski season. At all times, this is a world leader for extreme sports enthusiasts.
The hotel is a two-floor off-white building, like a turreted wedding cake, thus sandwiched between the lake and the end of Queenstown open mall. Its entrance is actually behind, in a two-floor conservatory. Inside this, soaring white walls, highlights of browns, leather seating, plaid throws. Up the stairs, a selection of old clocks with different times. Upstairs corridor, sea matting, antiques, collection men's old hairbrushes on a bench, a basket formed like a life size mannequin stands next to an antique armoire holding a flat screen computer for guests' free use. Corridors are white-painted wood to a height of about 2.5m, and then painted dark-putty colour above.
White doors do not have numbers. The door key also opens the main hotel door at night, and your safe. I have mid-wood floors, and walls are pale cream, dark putty or undecorated stone pebble. Fabrics are beige, moss-coloured with a hint of rust. There are full-length beige curtains over white louver blinds and both windows open, to look out over the paved street immediately below, with a brick-paved pavement opposite and then a metre-high wall, with 3m of pebble beach - a haven for hundreds of gulls - beyond. Across the lake, which must be about 15km wide at this point, rise the rugged Remarkables, with wisps of cloud tucked in at some times. Woodwork throughout the suite is dark. I have rust embroidered heraldry on dark brown cushions, rust-coloured leaf prints on the rough stone wall. Working gas-fired big-log fire with studded metal wall above & 2 c19 candles. Easy and free b-band. My open-plan dressing area had an iron and board, hidden in a wall cupboard, plenty of storage, lovely hand-crafted wood hangers, and a hospitality counter that had a refrigerator with free soft drinks, plus to-pay Veuve Cliquot and a whole range of spirits, plus tea and coffee, and biscotti in a silver-topped glass jar (they would go well with the five perfect white peaches in the parlor). The bathroom, at the rear of the whole, had dark slate tiles on the floor, an oval tub in an alcove, two oval basins, a toilet stall and a shower that offered big overhead rainforest or hand-held wall-set outlets. Towels were stored on two electric towel rails, and big-size screw-topped toiletries were Les Floralies, for the hotel. By day, the white-linen bed, with a flat screen television on the wall near its foot, is covered with a big fur throw, taken off at night turndown, when a special
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table appears to hold a tray with Kahlua, a wrap of Whitestone hard cheese, dried fruit and crackers.
Victoria Shaw, a larger than life New Zealander in her 30s, is co-owner as well as GM. Briefly, her parents - who started and still own Palliser Bay Wharekauhau Country Estate - were asked to come and rescue this Inn, that goes back to a woolshed built here in the mid 19th century. Their partners include interior designer Virginia Fisher and her husband and although initially Queenstown residents were 'doubtful' about foreigners - well, from elsewhere in New Zealand - coming in, now they are remarkably proud of 'the' hotel. The Shaw consortium found sitting tenants, including a Country Road store, taking up most of the ground floor, which meant there really was no room for a restaurant, merely a bar lounge with real-log fireplace. They do have the whole of the upper floor, which allows five suites, a guests' parlour where communal breakfast is served, and a kitchen. The chef does breakfasts, lunches - carried down to the bar or the small garden - and 24-hour room service is supplied by local restaurants, of which there are many good ones.
Victoria and I actually dined out, at Inspire in the nearby The Spire Hotel. We were with its manager, Mel Bohse, a business-minded woman who last job was MD Australia for Yahoo: I ate my tuna salad, my beef cheeks and home-made gnocchi followed by scoops of bright green pandan-flavored ice cream, and then we moved next door, to Inspire's resident jazz music.
I woke early, as light dawned. As well as the seagulls, still busily occupying the beach, there were half a dozen ducks swimming fast, their heads bobbing up and down into the water as if my clockwork. I did a fabulous run, along the mall and then straight up, slowly up the ultra-steep Ballarat Street to the start of the Queens Hill Walk and its Time Gate, like a mini Queen Mother's Gate in London's Hyde Park. Back home, I had a fabulous shower, and walked to breakfast, where places were set with white linens, white china and heritage cutlery. Five fresh juices were in china-stoppered glass bottles, in an ice bucket. I was brought a plunger of coffee, and English muffins in a black napkin. The chef's selected buffet included jars of cereals, but I loved the yogurt with stewed plums and fresh blueberries so much I went back for more.
And then, sadly, it was time to go. www.eichardtshotel.co.nz
Eichardt's Private Hotel, Queenstown, New Zealand
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