31 Esplanade, St Clair, Dunedin 9012, Otago, New Zealand. A 78-room hotel over 5 levels on the Esplanade at St Clair, on the southern edge of Dunedin — Ōtepoti in te reo Māori. Brick at the base, timber above, and a south face forty metres from the sea wall.
It went up in 1926 as a seafront pavilion with a tearoom on the ground floor and rooms for the season above it, and spent most of the century after that as a boarding house. By the time we took it on, two of the sea-facing verandahs had been bricked in and the rest were closed off.
The rebuild between 2006 and 2009 kept the brick shell, the stair and the verandah line, and replaced everything behind them. The sea face is double glazed throughout, which on this coast is a structural decision rather than a comfort one. Two levels were added at the back, off the Forbury Road side, which is why the inland rooms are newer and the sea-facing ones have the older proportions.
The building is not listed, and we have not claimed otherwise. What survives of 1926 is the outside wall, the stair, and the tiled floor in the lobby, which was under carpet for forty years.
Registered as Resort Scenery Hospitality Ltd, NZBN 9429048817326.
Ninety-six people, most of them local
Reception is staffed twenty-four hours by a person in this building. The number on this website reaches that desk, not a call centre in another city, and at three in the morning it reaches whoever is on night duty.
Nobody here is paid a commission or a bonus tied to gaming turnover, spa product sales or wine list upselling. A recommendation from a member of our staff is worth what it sounds like it is worth.
Housekeeping works a fixed roster rather than an on-call one, and the kitchen brigade of eighteen has eleven people who have been here more than three years. Both facts show up in the same place: a hotel where the person who checked you in last year is still on the desk.
What forty metres from a sea wall means
The building takes the weather off the Southern Ocean with nothing between. That has consequences worth setting out in advance: salt gets on the windows and they are washed weekly rather than monthly; the terrace furniture comes in from June to August; and the outdoor pool is heated all year because otherwise it would be usable for about ten weeks.
The sea wall in front of the hotel is maintained by the city council and the beach behind it moves. In a big swell the Esplanade is occasionally closed to traffic at the western end, in which case the car park is reached from Forbury Road and the front desk will say so when you ring.
Erosion work along this stretch is ongoing and there is sometimes machinery on the beach. It is on this page so that it is not a surprise at check-in.
A hotel with a licensed gaming room in it. The Albion Room is 290 m² of a building that runs to several thousand, it is one of the last rooms we built, and it closes at half past two while the rest of the hotel does not close at all. It is open to guests and to the public, aged 20 and over, on the premises. Nothing about it happens over the internet.
Yes, and about a fifth of our guests in January arrive with them. Cots and bed rails are free, children under twelve eat from the same kitchen at half price, the indoor pool is open to under-14s with an adult until 6pm, and the beach is across the road. The gaming room is behind a door with a person on it and no child has ever wandered into it.
Roof solar covers about 14 per cent of the building’s electricity across a year and rather more in December. Heat from the kitchen refrigeration preheats the pool water. Linen is changed on request rather than daily on stays of more than one night, and the saving is real enough that we do not pretend it is a guest sacrifice. Food waste goes to a grower on the Taieri; glass, card and soft plastics are separated back of house.
The duty manager first, who is on the premises at any hour. If that does not settle it, [email protected] reaches the general manager rather than the front desk, and is answered within two working days. Complaints about the gaming room specifically are covered on the host responsibility page, including how to go to the regulator instead of to us.
Resort Scenery is a hotel and entertainment resort at St Clair in Dunedin, New Zealand. This website carries information about our rooms, restaurant, bar, bathhouse, event spaces, gaming room and guest services. The Albion Room holds gaming machines, table games and live table gaming on the premises only, for guests and visitors aged 20 and over, and closes at 2.30am.
There is no play on this website. Resort Scenery runs no internet gaming, no betting service and no remote gaming of any kind. Nothing here accepts a stake, a deposit or a wager, and no account can be opened. Gaming happens in one room of this building, in person, under the Gambling Act 2003 and the conditions of our licence.
If gambling is causing harm, help is free and confidential. Gambling Helpline 0800 654 655 (free, 24/7) · Need to Talk? 1737 · Problem Gambling Foundation 0800 664 262 · text 8006 · choicenotchance.org.nz · safergambling.org.nz
NZBN 9429048817326 · Resort Scenery Hospitality Ltd · trading as Resort Scenery since 2009.
The Albion Room, the gaming room at Resort Scenery, is open to people aged 20 and over, as New Zealand law requires. The rest of the building — the rooms, The Beacon Room, The Cargill Bar, The Saltwater Bathhouse and the event rooms — is open to everyone.
If you would like to talk to someone about gambling, the New Zealand Gambling Helpline is free and answers day and night on 0800 654 655. Need to Talk? is on 1737.