Haunted Adelaide pub, ex-brothel that featured in movie Gallipoli given new lease of life as a home
It has to be one of Australia’s most remarkable and perhaps macabre homes, a haunted ex-brothel and pub from the movie Gallipoli turned into a rockstar residence.
Property
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Renovating an old house is stressful at the best of times, so it’s a brave move to take a commercial property and turn it into a home.
When a heritage-listed 1850s pub with a semi-notorious past as a bordello came up for sale, businessman Brenton Griguol could already see the potential.
Situated not far from his previous home in North Adelaide, where he’d run out of room for his extensive collection of Formula One racing cars, art and film memorabilia, the thought of living in a residence that had once been used as a set for the movie Gallipoli was appealing. “The front bar and window was used as a set in the early ’80s film Gallipoli with Mark Lee and Mel Gibson,” he says.
“It was a poignant scene when the Colonel walked in, and they were standing there throwing darts at a dartboard.”
Brenton, who lives with labrador Enzo, eight, a former guide dog, has completely overhauled what was once a smoky, beer-stained Irish pub into a unique home, now a luxurious one-bedroom, one-bathroom residence with seven living areas including a front bar and cellar, and 10 male and female toilets.
“Once they took the bar out, I thought I needed a bar for Friday night pizza night, so I had all of this made,” he says.
“I did it in copper as that all blends in. The original brass taps work and now house water and soda water only – beer is far too expensive to keep on tap.”
A seat from the Merritts chairlift at Thredbo sits in a corner, a reminder of Brenton’s time spent skiing with his father. It’s a quirky feature you don’t tend to see every day in a house, but then again, neither is the coffin that sits in the lounge. Or the ghosts that came with the pub.
EX-BROTHEL AND PUB THAT BECOME A HOME
Brenton says the ghosts are regulars and there has been multiple sightings, something he and Enzo are still getting use to after four years.
“Rebecca (his partner) and I stood here one night and saw that door handle latch up and spring open, and this cold rush go right through us, and we thought ‘What was that?’,” he says.
Tradies working on the renovation also caught glimpses, seeing “flashes of something” going up and down the stairs.
“Even last week, I woke up and Enzo had bolted from the room, and it was like there was something sitting on the bed. The room was ice-cold, and I’m going, ‘oh, it’s here again’. It was really freaky.”
Commercially viable
Commercial buildings left empty in the wake of Covid has put a spotlight on transforming disused spaces into residential living, and real estate groups such as Savills are constantly on the look out for viable options.
But even prior to Covid, historic buildings have been hot property for modern conversions: the woolsheds at Teneriffe, Brisbane, the Kent Town Brewery in Adelaide, and TV show The Block converted the Dux cinema at Albert Park.
Brenton says it’s the irreplaceable original features such as 18-foot ceilings, well-worn floorboards, and ceiling roses that entice you.
“They were selling it through realcommercial.com.au and therefore no one residentially was looking at it,” says Brenton.
“I thought there’s scope here, and you just had to see past all the Irish crap and all the filth. I thought this could become a really cool house.”
But the process wasn’t all smooth sailing. Rezoning it to a private residence sounds straight forward, but when it was out for public notification, two people objected, dragging out council approval for more than seven months. It also took about nine months for patrons to stop knocking on the door wanting a beer, too.
Brenton was more concerned about the decor that had to go. The former Irish-themed drinkery was heavy on timber and the lingering smell of stale beer.
ADELAIDE’S WEIRDEST HOME?
While its heritage status requires the exterior to remain unchanged, inside the pub has been given a dark, yet cosy and lived-in atmosphere, personalised by Brenton’s love of motorsports, art and film, and his macabre sense of humour.
There’s ample luxury too, such as Tom Dixon Melt pendants over the rear bar and in the kitchen, and Versace and Louis Vuitton pieces scattered throughout.
The front bar’s ceiling has 18-carat gold paint, and its greenish tinge works perfectly with the stained glass and brass bar taps, the few things Brenton retained.
Black carpet (to hide Enzo’s hair), doors painted in shiny Ferrari Black automotive paint and walls in a dark navy are so elegantly finished that when you see the black steel US Marines coffin in the formal lounge, complete with a giant Mickey Mouse inside, it doesn’t appear as bizarre as it sounds. More like a shiny black Smeg fridge in the corner of the room.
“I had it specially imported because I wanted black steel, I wanted something a bit different,” says Brenton.
Movie props, such as the terrifying alien from Alien 3, and a cut-off foot and Billy the puppet from horror film Saw are more confronting. So too is the poster of The Exorcist above his bed.
“A lot of people get freaked out, when they walk into a bedroom and they see the poster, you’ve got to have a very macabre sense of humour, you’ve got to be different in this world,” he says with a grin.
And what was once the restaurant area is now more like a classic car museum, with historic Formula One cars, Ferraris and a Porsche amongst the collection. Several wings from F1 cars driven by Ayrton Senna, Kimi Raikkonen and Mark Webber are suspended with perfect precision to admire. His favourite? The ’69 Formula One car that raced in Adelaide.
“I still race now, Paul Newman drove that one, and that one did two Grand Prix.”
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