The Shorts have sold their idyllic and windswept Seabreeze Beach Hotel on the NSW mid-north coast to the growing Hunter group.
The Short family have owned and operated the seaside pub at picturesque South West Rocks for over two decades, having purchased the title in 2001 for around $7 million.
The large-format Hotel comprises state-of-the-art public bar, wagering, restaurant, gaming room with 22 machines, 29 accommodation rooms in use, and a popular drive-through bottleshop.
The pub occupies a prominent 3,816sqm land holding in a prime position in the CBD, with another two buildings at the rear, representing another 1,450sqm, and the site includes three tenanted retail shops, contributing passive income.
It came to market in September citing weekly revenue of circa $225k across multiple streams, and upside in more accommodation rooms, not currently in use, which could be brought online, as well as opportunity to enact upon an existing approved DA.
“My entire family has enjoyed a long and favourable history with this wonderful hotel, and as such we have enjoyed our period of stewardship immensely,” says family matriarch Ros Short, who held the deeds with her children Marty and Paris.
“We wish the new owner every success and look forward to seeing the hotel and the township prosper in the way both so richly deserve.”
The new owner is the growing NSW-based family business Hunter Hotel Group, led by Paul Hunter.
The family already owns and operates a portfolio of nine hotels in and around the Newcastle and Central Coast region, including the Kincumber Hotel, Maitland’s Coach & Horses Hotel, Newcastle’s Finnegan’s Hotel, Gateshead Tavern Motel, and the Bateau Bay Hotel, purchased from Laundy Hotels in 2017.
Agents would not be drawn on the price paid other than to confirm the sale price was in line with market guidance, but sources have suggested it sold for around $32 million.
Sales literature likened the Seabreeze with beachfront institutions such at Bondi, Manly or Byron Bay, and this is reportedly “precisely how the market responded” to the offer.
“True beachfront hotels such as the Seabreeze are emblematic of Australian surf culture in its purest form, and are unsurprisingly very rare and therefore aggressively sought after,” says HTL Property’s Dan Dragicevich, who orchestrated the sale with partner Andrew Jolliffe.
