Katanning flour mill turns into a luxury hotel

Katanning flour mill was once sold by the shire for just $1 after years of neglect.

Now the once-crumbling building is reopening one of regional WA’s finest luxury hotels.

The 22-bed Premier Mill Hotel has opened after a two-year multi-million-dollar restoration.

And the hotel is now taking bookings with room rates ranging from $250 to $350.

Nigel Oakey, chief executive of the Dome cafe group — one of WA’s most successful business chains, is the man behind the rebirth of the old flour mill.

After buying it for the $1, he says he spent “considerably more” than the $4 million he had budgeted to restore the 127-year-old building.

As part of the restoration, the mill’s infrastructure has been retained. Each room displays a different element of the building’s history and Fremantle architect Michael Patroni has maintained the building’s industrial feel and interesting spaces with bespoke furniture heritage features and a distinctive stairway.

In the end, Mr Oakey said it was a good investment creating a unique accommodation option for visitors.

“The Great Southern just became a genuine weekend adventure,” Mr Oakey told Perth Now. “Well under three hours’ drive-time from the metropolitan area, the new hotel serves as luxury base camp for visitors to explore all that this vast exciting region has to offer.”

The three-storey, electrically powered mill has quite a history.

Originally, it was built by merchant, agriculturist and politician Frederick Henry Piesse in 1891.

Mr Piesse was an important figure in the state’s history, serving as he local MP from 1890 and, for a brief time in 1899, he was deputy premier.  He died in 1912. He is buried in Katanning.

The Shire of Katanning to sell the building which had housed the mill that operated until 1977 and had been a tourist centre for a while but had been empty for years.

5th July 2018