Here’s a small set of images of the “California Hotel” in Hawthorn, Melbourne, Australia.

Beforehand I’ll give a little bit of backstory.

The California Hotel was once a sprawling Hotel complex located across the road from a prestigious school. It featured it’s own Restaurant, pools, and many themed rooms with rather impressive full wall murals.

Over the years the hotel slowly began to lose money until it eventually closed. From my understanding the closure was rather sudden, and the rooms simply sat as they were, still fully furnished.

An investor purchased the land and intended to demolish the hotel and build a retirement complex, however local council issues meant he couldn’t gain approval to do any work. So he decided to leave the slowly decaying Hotel there as a form of blackmail.

The closed hotel sat there slowly rotting away, and even more frighteningly, being occupied by a variety of homeless people and drug addicts. Apparently there was always noise coming from the empty rooms and the local residents hated the crime the decrepit building bought with it.

It ended up being a long stalemate, residents petitioned the council to have the buildings demolished, but the investor refused to demolish anything until the council approved his plans. Neither wanted to back down, so the building just sat.

When I visited the building there was also an abandoned Drug rehabilitation clinic next door, which looked to have also been taken over by vagrants.

I never went inside either area, purely because I didn’t want to be attacked by some crazy guy with a dirty syringe….. that and it’s really unnerving seeing eyes peering at you through boarded up windows.

Anyway, I went past the other day and noticed that it’s gone, it has finally been demolished. I’m happy for the local residents, they no longer have to deal with the place. But at the same time I regret not going back earlier to get some better images of the place.

Anyway, here are my images of the California Hotel, before it was demolished.
(bear in mind they aren’t great, but the best I could do at the time)














California Hotel - a set on Flickr

[Kerrowdown]

The words "You can check-out any time you like, But you can never leave! " springs to mind.

A great set of social history images, you should get a set of these on archive at the local museum or library somewhere, especially now as the buildings gone.

[Rupert]

I like those, fits perfectly! Sorry, but this just has to go here.....great shots!

You Tube

You Tube

Regards!

[daacon]

Good story - seem no one won.

[Sailor]

Good story - spooky pics.

Jer

[sbyrne]

I like those, fits perfectly! Sorry, but this just has to go here.....great shots!

The Eagles - Hotel California (with Lyrics in the Description) - YouTube

Regards!

Simply the best

Steve

[jennverr]

Nice shots! I love this kind of stuff. Old buildings, hotels, etc. did you get any shots looking through the windows into the rooms? It would certainly be scary to see people in there!

[hks_kansei]

did you get any shots looking through the windows into the rooms? It would certainly be scary to see people in there!

No, I only had the 50mm with me. The people seemed to be hiding in the second floor of the rehab building (the brick one on the lefthand side of the alleyway picture)


The people in there tend to stay hidden since they aren't supposed to be there.

[hks_kansei]

In case anybody's interested, here's a link to a cached version of the hotel's website in 2006 when it was still operating.

California Hotel | Melbourne, Australia

[tessfully]

Thanks for sharing the story and pics. I find it all very interesting and the photos are very effective.