Fiona Donnelly
A new luxe hotel adds glamour to Brisbane’s Caxton Street.
Boutique. Luxury. Hotel. Not words usually associated with inner-city Brisbane’s Caxton Street strip. But this month sees the opening of Gambaro Hotel, a plush 68-room addition designed by Hirsch Bedner Associates, whose work includes the likes of Jumeirah Vittaveli in the Maldives and the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada.
Just a pie-toss from Suncorp Stadium, the new clean-lined four-storey structure is billed as “luxury with a family touch” by its Gambaro Group owners. Interiors are urban-sleek with stone and marble bathrooms. Acoustically treated to block street hubbub, there’s decent natural light, too, from an interior atrium, and 49 rooms have balconies.
With just one set of traffic lights between the hotel and Brisbane airport (travelling via the Inner City Bypass and airport toll tunnel), managing director John Gambaro reckons the international terminal can be reached in 12 minutes.
Last year, Gambaro Hotel’s neighbour morphed into a cool gastro pub, Statler & Waldorf, and the louche Velvet Cigar was transformed into the hip watering hole Lefty’s Old Time Music Hall, a joint project by Jamie Webb and Jason Scott of Sydney’s Shady Pines Saloon.
Rooms from $259. Gambaro Hotel, 29 Caxton St, Petrie Tce, Brisbane, (07) 3369 9500.
