Melbourne Tower Hotel And Tower Hall Hotel

The Melbourne Tower Hotel and Tower Hill Hotel are a pair of villas, both currently functioning as hotels, built in the 1870s. They feature plastered exteriors and natural slate roofs adorned with wrought-iron finials. The buildings have stacks with rendered shafts, deep moulded cornices, and shaped sunk panels.

Each villa has a mirror-plan layout, with front wings, entrances located on the outer returns, and rear service wings positioned at right angles. The structures are two storeys tall with a half-basement and three-storey entrance towers, showcasing lavish external details. Each entrance elevation boasts a prominent central three-stage tower topped with a pyramidal roof, flanked by one window on the left and a blind elevation on the right.

The deep eaves are complemented by a dentil cornice, a moulded sill band, and a platband. The towers feature pilaster strips, round-headed doorways, and round-headed windows with keyblocks on the returns. The first floor has a projecting cornice with a dentil frieze and a stucco pediment above. The second stage of the tower includes paired round-headed windows with moulded architraves and keyblocks, while the third stage has triple windows with paired pilasters.

To the left of the tower, there is one ground-floor and one first-floor two-pane sash window, and to the right, a shallow projecting sash window. Each villa's two-window front elevation includes a gabled outer wing with a two-storey canted bay. The gable is decorated with a stucco arch, and the bay features brattished balustrading on either side. The ground-floor windows are square-headed with proud architraves, while the first-floor windows are round-headed, all fitted with two-pane sashes. A shallower one-bay projection towards the centre has similarly styled windows and a hipped roof. The division between the two villas is marked by a pilaster.

The Tower Hill Hotel, located to the right, has a single-storey flat-roofed addition to the left of its entrance tower. The interior has not been inspected but is likely to retain features of interest. This grand design is a notable example of typical Torbay architecture, situated prominently in Chelston, an unspoiled 19th-century suburb of Torquay.