Paddington’s Four In Hand becomes a residence for $6 million

Three years after Paddington’s landmark Four in Hand Hotel was sold to hotelier brothers Mitchell and Ashton Waugh for $8 million, of which $6.3 million is registered on the property’s title records, the pokie and liquor licence will be transferred to another venue and the property will be sold as a house for $6 million.

“There’s more residential value in the site because it has 700 square metres of internal space than there is in its use as a pub,” selling agent Gavin Rubinstein of Ray White Double Bay told Domain.  “And the group has better use of the licences elsewhere.”

The Waugh family already owns many other pubs around Sydney, including the nearby Woollahra Hotel and The Royal.

The Four In Hand has six pokies.

No one knows yet which venue the licences – which cost on average about $200,000 per machine – will be transferred after the sale is complete.

This will see prestige property hunters converting the two-storey pub behind the heritage facade into a private residence.

This will be like what happened to the former Windsor Castle hotel, just a stone’s throw away.

It was converted into a private residence by former restaurateur Peter Polovin and his wife Rita. They sold it for a suburb record in 2015 for $11.85 million. 

The news has not gone down well with some of the locals.

Neighbour Sophie Greive says living next to the pub is special.

“It brought a good vibe to the area,” she told Domain. “My husband and his friends were joking the other day about putting all their money together to buy it. They won’t. It’s a loss for Paddington.”

But others thought it was a good thing.

“For me it would be a bonus because we wouldn’t have any more problems with cans and garbage left out on the street,” fellow neighbour Robert Nursey told Domain.

“There’s plenty of hotels in Paddington. The loss of one won’t be any great disaster.”

Leon Gettler - 16th April 2018