The Atlantic Hotel and area railings

The Atlantic Hotel and area railings

This is a hotel complex formed from formerly three separate houses, of which only the right-hand house survives in its original form. The other two were reduced in height by two storeys in 1914 during conversion to a single private house.

The right house is rendered stucco with a slate roof, comprising a basement and four storeys plus an attic. It has a two-window range frontage with a full-height stucco canted bay to the right side and single windows over the door to the left. This house is a mirrored pair with the third in the terrace, now part of Clarence House Hotel. The design features 20th-century dormers set behind the parapet with inset mouldings and rebated angles in sunk panels. The upper two floors have cambered-headed windows in moulded surrounds, with arched French windows opening onto a continuous iron balcony on the first floor. These French windows have moulded arched heads, plain fanlights and pilaster sides. The ground floor displays channelled rustication with plain square-headed windows and door. The first-floor balcony sits on iron brackets and is fitted with attractive railings of slightly Gothic character, similar to earlier 19th-century designs, with fleur-de-lys heads. The original panelled door with overlight has been replaced by a plastic fixed door. The basement retains sash windows. The rear elevation shows sashes to the left and paired sashes to the right, mostly of twelve-pane design.

The former Trayles to the left stands only two storeys high, with a steeply pitched slate roof of small slates, a high centre rendered ridge stack and six attic dormers behind the parapet—the outer dormers are single-light while the remainder are three-light. A moulded modillion cornice runs across the front, with two-storey bay windows to either side of a two-window centre, the spacing revealing the original design as a mirrored pair of houses. The windows are horned plate-glass sashes set in moulded stucco surrounds, eared except to the narrower windows flanking the bays. The fourth bay features a French window above a square stucco-enclosed porch with 20th-century iron railings and an ornate arched doorcase with laurel-leaf moulding in marble and a horse-head keystone. A dentilled plaque inscribed 'Trayles' is mounted here. Iron double gates and double panelled half-glazed heavy doors with an overlight provide entry. Three cast-iron rainwater heads with rosette motifs are visible. The area railings date to circa 1913 and comprise wrought-iron scrolled intermittent panels.

The left end features a renewed canted oriel to the first floor and two plate-glass sashes to the ground floor with another to the first-floor centre. A short section to the left has a similar window over door with an ornate corniced hood supported on massive console brackets. A 20th-century flat-roofed wing extends to the left along Picton Terrace. The rear shows a gable to the left and 20th-century single-storey additions.

Interior features include altered cornices to the entrance hall. The stair to the rear right has thin turned balusters, square newels and scrolled tread ends, with the rail curved outward at the landings. The left room features a moulded dentil cornice and a timber fireplace in 18th-century style with scroll and shell frieze, dentil cornice and shouldered surround to a white marble frame housing an arched cast-iron grate. Hardwood double-panelled doors in moulded frames are set on the north wall. The right room displays a moulded cornice, a four-panel hardwood door in moulded frame and an 18th-century style timber fireplace with a plaque flanked by scrolls in the frieze and a shouldered surround to a fine coloured marble frame with cast-iron grate. Tiled curved cheeks flank each side of the grate. The former Carrington Hotel section retains a stick-baluster stair with fat bulbous newel, typical of circa 1875.