The Captains Flat Hotel has sold for $900,000. Photo: RE/MAX.
The pub which once held claim to the longest bar in the Southern Hemisphere, the Captains Flat Hotel, has sold to the Durr family for $900,000.
John Buckley and Gary Kelly from RE/MAX were tasked with the sale. Mr Buckley said the final sale price was pretty close to expectation.
He described Captains Flat as a “very tidy village” with a community that has “sorely missed” its hotel since it was closed due to the pandemic in September 2020.
“The buyers (Durr family) are locals who have lived in the area for a very long time, are well known and when they open up I believe people will become very familiar with what I think will be a very unique and new style for the hotel,” Mr Buckley said.
“The hotel was built when there was a population of 3500 miners around the village. The lifestyle of the village has changed dramatically from when the mine was open and to continue with that, expecting people just to turn up and have a drink every afternoon, it’s not going to be quite the same, is it?
“We had a number of people looking at ways to utilise the space more effectively and it’ll all be unveiled as it goes along, but these people bring an impressive plan to make it work best moving forward.”
Captains Flat Hotel holds four bars, one of which is believed to be the longest bar in Australia. Photo: RE/MAX.
Representing the family, Tracey Durr said that the first month of owning the pub has been exciting but a little overwhelming.
“We are just absolutely under the pump at the moment,” she said. “We’re rebuilding our house that we lost to fire a couple of years ago, so we’re in the process of trying to finish it off before we can focus on the pub.”
While many people have dreamt of owning a pub all their lives, for the Durrs, the opportunity was one that just “came up” and was “too good to miss out on”.
However, with a local community eager to see the pub reopened, Ms Durr warned that it might take some time to restore the “grand old lady” to her “grand old days”.
“We want to take the time and effort to restore her as much as we possibly can,” she said.
“There is a huge amount of work to be done out there before we can contemplate selling anything from it.
“We’re not prepared to reopen until we can get it to the point where we can get our commercial health and safety certificate.”
The pub is famous for at once stage being the longest bar in the Southern Hemisphere. After the bar was shortened from 32.2 m to 22.8 m, its owners claimed it remains the longest bar in Australia. Ms Durr suspected that they wouldn’t be the only pub owners holding claim to that title.
“I think there are quite a few pubs in Australia that would run for contention on that, but we’re reasonably confident to say it’s the longest in NSW and it’s still a bloody long bar,” she said.
All in all, Ms Durr said the family was excited to show their vision and hard work to the community eventually but pleaded for patience for the time being.
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