The Hotel Palisade was closed in 2008, just after the World Youth day celebrations and spent seven years in hibernation.
MP7 Sign of the Palisade 2014
acrylic on canvas 10 x 10cm
Available for sale
During
its long sleep, many locals worried that the Palisade would
never reopen, and would end up as apartments like so many other historic
buildings, but it reopened in 2015, appropriately just in time for its
100th birthday.
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| MP39 'Sign of the Palisade' 2014 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm Available for sale |
The renovations added a rooftop cocktail bar boasting sweeping 360 degree views of the Harbour, Millers Point and Barangaroo, as well as a new main bar and boutique accommodation.
I'm not a personal fan of the blocky design of the new roof, which to me spoilt the line of the original roof-top design, but at least it's not too obtrusive from ground level.
I'm so used to seeing it from a bird's eye view from the top floor of the Harbour Control Tower, which has been my studio for well over a decade.
Although a waterfront pub, it wasn't the pub of choice for the smarter wharfies - at least not since 1972 when the Harbour Control Tower was built, anyway, for the good reason that being directly opposite the Harbour Tower, the HarbourMaster had an excellent view of the comings and goings of any stevedores that might have clocked off early for a long liquid lunch. Moreton's (aka 'The Big House') where Sussex Street becomes Hickson Road, was overshadowed by the escarpment below High Street, and there was an entrance to the Lord Nelson in Kent street that also wasn't able to be overlooked. The entrance of the Hero of Waterloo in Lower Fort Street also wasn't visible to any sticky beaks in the eye in the sky.
The Hotel Palisade is now a seven-storey masonry building banded with strips of sandstone. There is a basement, five storeys of rooms and the new roof-top enclosed bar and terrace.
MP39 'Sign of the Palisade'
2014 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm
This small canvas, painted 'en plein air' just before the re-opening, features the iconic name plate which is attached to the parapet. I'm fascinated by the way that the "is" of the Palisade sign is enclosed inside a sandstone vignette, while the rest of the word is painted on the brick facade.
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