Coolest quirk of Australia’s best hotel MACq 01 in Hobart

It took out the top gong in Australia’s hugely competitive best hotel competition this year – but one little perk for guests is the coolest part.

Plenty of establishments may claim they’re the best place to stay in Australia but Hobart’s MACq 01 has the award to prove it after taking out the top gong at the industry’s annual hotel awards.

MACq 01 was awarded “overall hotel of the year” at the Australian Hotel Association (AHA) Awards back in February, a coveted crown hotels across the nation fight for.

Set on Hobart’s historic waterfront, MACq 01 boasts some of the best views of the city and its bustling harbour.

The view from MACq 01’s top-floor hotel rooms. Picture: Supplied

The hotel rooms overlook Hobart’s harbour. Picture: Adam Gibson

But it’s one free perk offered to guests when they check-in that is its crowning glory.

MACq 01 is Australia’s first storytelling hotel, a concept not seen anywhere else in the world.

The hotel’s 114 rooms are each named after a prominent Tasmanian identity, an idea that was born after tourists leaving the Apple Isle were asked at the airport what they loved most about their trip.

With the majority naming Tasmania’s people as one of their favourite parts of their visit, the concept for MACq 01 was decided – a hotel that would showcase some of their best and most colourful identities.

One of Tasmania’s identities that the rooms are based around. Picture: Supplied

The storytelling concept means there is always a master storyteller on site, who runs tours of the hotel and offers up fascinating titbits about some of the 114 identities.

We had master storyteller Lucy show us around the hotel, who filled us in on our room’s identity Lucy Beeton.

A Tasmanian First Nations woman, Ms Beeton was a fierce campaigner for land rights and justice for Aboriginal people and taught hundreds of children in the 1800s.

We also heard about Ikey Solomon, a notorious British criminal who was the inspiration for Fagan in Oliver Twist.

Solomon was eventually caught in London and sent to Tasmania’s penal colony, then known as Van Diemen’s Land, in 1831.

The stories of the 114 identities are told in books located in your room. Picture: Adam Gibson

Perhaps the most interesting story to come from Lucy was that of John Palotta, a Hobart man who built an entire model replica of a miniature Tudor village back in the 1950s.

Mr Palotta suffered from polio and was confined to a wheelchair, with mobility in only a few of his fingers.

The incredible feat, called ‘A Tudor Village Down Under’, quickly became famous in Tasmania with thousands of people visiting Hobart to see it.

Mr Palotta died years later with interest in the model replica eventually waning.

But decades later, in 2015, a group with nostalgia about the village got it running as a visitor attraction again.

After a brief closure of Christmas and New Year in 2015, the team got ready to reopen in early 2016 only to open the shed where it was located and find the Tudor village completely gone.

For years, rumours and theories were rife about who stole the sprawling Tudor replica but no investigation came to fruition.
That was until 2020, when a manager at MACq 01 tasked with finding various artefacts to decorate the hotel rooms with, was scrolling through Facebook Marketplace.

Each room at MACq 01 contains a number of items linked to the identity they are based on and the hotel manager was hoping to find some kind of souvenir or item linked to Mr Palotta’s Tudor village.

Instead of finding a small souvenir, the hotel manager stumbled upon someone giving away the entire village for free.

The person giving it away swears to this day they weren’t the original thief, with the hotel eventually finding out the Facebook seller had donated it to a mystery Tasmanian who is now restoring the village to its former glory.

But the hotel’s storytelling feature isn’t the only cool part of the establishment.

MACq 01’s Evolve Spirits Bar is decked out with prehistoric items, again sourced by the hotel, including fossils and bones.

Evolve Spirits Bar at MACq 01 Hotel. Picture: Adam Gibson

The bar has a prehistoric feel. Picture: Adam Gibson

The bar offers an Overeem tasting experience, where you can taste a selection of whiskeys from Casey Overeem, Tasmania’s original whisky distiller and the man who taught Bill Lark, founder of Lark Whisky, how to make the spirit.

Specially curated by Evolve’s whisky connoisseurs and set in the ambient, storied bar setting, the intimate private tasting takes guests on a journey to discover Casey’s single malt whiskies.

Evolve Spirits Bar is, just like the hotel, also an award winner, taking out the top gong for Australia’s Hotel Bar of the Year and Tasmania’s Cocktail Bar of the Year in 2021.

Away from the bar, the rooms are some of the biggest you’ll find in a hotel.

The superior waterfront rooms come with a sprawling balcony, decked out with artificial grass and outdoor chairs where you can while away the afternoon and watch the sun set over Kunanyi (Mount Wellington).

And finally, if your Storytelling Tour in MACq 01 left you yearning for more stories of Tasmania, the hotel also offers the ‘Hidden Hobart’ tour, a 90 minute experience that uses retro viewfinders to wander the city and give tourists a look at what it was like throughout history.

The viewfinder tour, run by MACq 01.

This journalist was a guest of MACq 01.