Speers Point Hotel (Pippi's)

The Speers Point Hotel, built in1902 on the northern shore of Lake Macquarie in exactly the same position that now stands the hotel known as "Pippi's at the Point". On Thursday, March 20th 1902, Thomas Williams was granted a conditional license for premises to be known as the Spiers Point Hotel. It was originally named after one of the early landowners, William Spier. The original building was a charming 2 story brick and timber structure in the "Swiss style of architecture" with balconette elevations at front and side with a tiled roof. Hot and cold water was available to guests as well as acetylene gas lamps to light the main rooms. It was very up-to-date for the time, contained 26 rooms, and sat on more than 5 acres. Described as "a first class hotel" and a "credit to the district" the hotel had all modern conveniences for visitors. It was a popular meeting place, particularly for men, as in the early days ladies did not frequent pubs. In 1903, Mr Williams had a dance hall erected for public use. The area including the hotel, lake, and beautiful park were very popular with holidaymakers and young people from the newly emerging suburbs of Boolaroo and Speers Point as well as from the older more established Teralba.

In 1911, the hotel became The Speers Point Hotel, and welcomed many visitors to the park and hosted many community and social events. These included the annual Speers Point Anniversary Regatta, picnics, and even bare-knuckle boxing in its grounds. In a bid to promote the area, in 1912, the licensee introduced sculling races and put up the prize money. Also in 1912, the Minister for Mines, Mr Edden, opened the extension of the tramway from Brush Creek to Speers Point by cutting the ribbon in front of the Speers Point Hotel.

The hotel has had many licensees over the years starting with Thomas Williams in 1902 and later Harold Robert Wilkinson in the 1950's who was known as Pippy Wilkinson the namesake from which the hotel has been called ever since. In 1956, the council had no objection to the additions of a lounge room, toilets, and a cellar at a cost of 17,000 Pounds. Many changes have been made to Pippy's over the years yet it has remained in exactly the same spot retaining its amazing view, through the pine trees down the lake. Now named "Pippi's at the Point" it now offers 14 boutique rooms and a restaurant.

This work by Lake Macquarie City Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License