Port Arthur has always held a special place in Damian Brown's heart.

The famed historic site and former prison is one of Tasmania's biggest tourist attractions, but it's a little known fact that until the 1950s, Port Arthur was also home to a bustling hotel.

Mr Brown's family became intertwined with the site when his grandparents started the Hotel Arthur in the 1920s.

"My grandfather, Lindsay Leo Kerslake was born in Launceston in 1880 and he went away to sea in his early 20s," Mr Brown said.

Lindsay Kerslake opened the successful Hotel Arthur in the early 1920s. ( Supplied: Tasmanian Archives )

"He was in San Francisco at the time of the great earthquake of 1906 and he escaped from that and came back to Tasmania and started his life here."

Upon returning to the island state, Lindsay Kerslake married Molly Bartlett — a small-town girl from Westbury.

"They moved to the Old Bell Hotel in Elizabeth Street [in] Hobart before taking up a licence at Port Arthur in the early 1920s, where my mother [Maisie Brown] grew up," Mr Brown said.

Renovating a ruin

Michael Smith, the conservation project officer at the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority, said the Kerslakes had played a part in the life of one of the site's most impressive buildings.

"They [Lindsay and Molly Kerslake] took up a title of what was our former law courts and commandant's offices, which had been burnt by a fire in the 1897 fires," he said.

"It remained as a ruin up until 1919 when Lindsay Kerslake bought the title and he converted the ruin into a hotel. That was the first Hotel Arthur on our site."

The Law Courts and Commandant's Offices were rebuilt by Lindsay Kerslake after a fire, and became the first Hotel Arthur on the site. ( Supplied: Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority )

Mr Smith said the hotel was short lived.

"The hotel only survived up until 1921 when it again burnt and it took their business aspirations out of that building and put it into another building onsite," he said.

"They moved up the hill to the Junior Medical Officer's house and that was a really successful business enterprise for them.

"The Hotel Arthur was resumed by the Government in 1946 but operated as a hotel until April 1958."



The Junior Medical Officer's House was refurbished after Hotel Arthur closed in 1958. ( Supplied: Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority )

From hotel to film set

The 1927 silent film For the Term of His Natural Life was filmed in Port Arthur. ( Supplied: Tasmanian Archives )

Mr Brown said it was his late sister Martina Beck who was especially fond of hearing about their mother Maisie's childhood at the hotel and the stories about when she met their father at the site.

American actress Eva Novak starred in For the Term of His Natural Life. ( Wikimedia Commons )

"My mother and father got together there," he said.

"My father was a teacher and his first teaching job was at the Port Arthur school before he went on to do further degrees and they [he and my mother] moved to Hobart."

Another favourite family memory was the filming of the 1927 silent film For the Term of His Natural Life, which was made at the site.

The 1927 silent film was based on the book by Marcus Clarke, who visited Port Arthur in the 1870s.

It tells the story of a convict escaping Port Arthur, starring popular Hollywood actress Eva Novak and Civilization star George Fisher.

Mr Brown said it was a "notable event" in the hotel's history that still made his family proud.

"The major cast and crew stayed at my grandfather's hotel," he said.

The major cast and crew of For the Term of His Natural Life stayed at the Hotel Arthur during filming. ( Supplied: Tasmanian Archives )

Martina's passion

But it didn't take a film crew and Hollywood stars to liven up the Hotel Arthur — Mr Brown said his grandfather knew how to captivate an audience.

"My grandfather was a raconteur and a well-known liar," he said.

"People used to come to the Hotel Arthur to hear Lindsay's stories about all sorts of things.

"He had trouble closing the bar, but my grandmother would close the bar in a short time."

"It was very popular in its day."

Descendants of Lindsay and Molly Kerslake visited Port Arthur after Martina Beck's death. ( Supplied: Michael Smith )

It was Martina's passion for Port Arthur that led her family to plan a trip to the site after her death aged 68 last year.

Mr Brown said his sister wanted her relatives to remember the life of her mother and grandparents at their hotel at one of Australia's most notorious prisons.

He even found some treasures of his own on the tour.

"It was good for me to see various things like my mother's initials carved in a window ledge at the back of the house that had been the hotel, something she had told us about when we were kids."

Mr Smith said Martina had carried on her family's legacy.

"She loved it with a passion," he said.

"She had a bubbly spirit and she generated a love for her story."