Ann Garms, a key figure in preserving Brisbane’s historic heritage, has died

A WOMAN hailed as a ‘champion of Brisbane’s heritage’, and who was a major player in the city’s hospitality and tourism sectors, has died.

Ann Garms has been described as an “extremely dynamic and caring” woman.

A KEY figure in preserving Brisbane’s historic buildings and a major player in the city’s hospitality and tourism sectors has passed away.

Ann Garms, a spirited and award-winning entrepreneur, was also a prominent identity in the National Party and close confidante of former Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

Garms, 71, died in St Vincent’s Hospital at the weekend after a nine-month battle with a rare cancer.

Since then her partner, Gary Gardiner, has been inundated with condolence messages from top guns in Queensland’s political and business circles.

An emotional Gardiner, who met Garms by chance 10 years ago on a flight to Melbourne, described her yesterday as an “extremely dynamic and caring’’ woman.

Together, the couple stayed busy with his business The French Corner, a furniture importing and interior design outfit based at Newmarket.

“She was very much for women advancing in life and business,’’ Gardiner told City Beat.

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk hailed Garms yesterday as “a champion of Brisbane’s heritage,’’ citing her work with the National Trust in 2009 to help raise $20 million towards the $215 million cost of renovating City Hall.

Queensland Tourism Industry Council boss Daniel Gschwind remembered her as “a prominent and flamboyant contributor’’ who ran numerous restaurants and helped establish the College of Tourism and Hospitality, now part of TAFE Queensland.

“Ann had a generous, energetic and indomitable spirit that was infectious to all around her,’’ Gschwind said.

“She would show up in the office with big bunches of flowers – just because every day was worth celebrating.”

You can expect a huge roll up for her funeral at 1pm on Monday at St Mary’s Anglican Church at Kangaroo Point.

One of her closest friends, former Governor-General Quentin Bryce, will deliver the eulogy.

SAVING HISTORY

BORN in Brisbane the eldest of four children, Garms spent time in swinging London in the 1960s before returning home to launch her first business in 1970, a boarding house at Mount Isa.

But she found her way back to Brisbane and by the late 1970s started buying historic buildings facing likely demolition, renovating them and then operating successful restaurants.

She started with the Old Courthouse Restaurant at Cleveland in 1977 and two years later snared Petrie Mansions in Petrie Terrace and the Roseville homestead at Newstead.

The Roseville in particular became “a place to be seen by movers and shakers,’’ one source told us yesterday.

Indeed, now-disgraced former Police Commissioner Terry Lewis chose Roseville as the venue in 1986 to introduce new Police Commissioner Bill Gunn to Bjelke-Petersen, Sir Edward Lyons and other top operators of the day.

Garms was even in the Premier’s office on the day he received $100,000 cash in a brown paper bag from a developer. It was this bribe which led to the ill-fated prosecution of Bjelke-Petersen for corruption and perjury.

As a former vice-president of the Liberal Party, she launched an unsuccessful tilt for the seat of Windsor in 1983 before joining the Nats. But she soured on politics and vowed not to seek office again.

“I never ever want to be involved again,” Garms said at the time. “I like to do my own thing. I want to achieve something at the end of every day. In politics, there’s far too much back-stabbing and untruths told. That’s not my scene.”

Despite the Bjelke-Petersen’s passion for knocking down historic buildings, Garms helped write the state’s first Heritage legislation in 1984 and, five years, later she bought the much-loved Tivoli Theatre in Fortitude Valley.

Her conservation efforts helped her earn the Order of Australia in 1991, a gong which followed Advance Australia and National Trust awards a few years earlier.

Garms’ tenacity could also be seen in her long-running feud with Telstra, which started in 1984 when phone troubles started plaguing her Roseville eatery. Incredibly, the battle was still unresolved when she died.