The Hydro Grand Hotel, in Timaru. Photograph taken circa 1913, for 'The Press' newspaper by an unidentified photographer.

Now it stands abandoned, derelict and dangerous - but when the Hydro Grand Hotel opened 105 years ago, it was feted as a "credit to Timaru" and a holiday destination, appearing on postcards all around the country.

The hotel opened at the end of December, 1912.

The Timaru Herald ran an article on it prior to its opening, describing it as a "handsome new building", which "commands one of the finest sea and mountain views to be obtained in Timaru".

COURTESY OF THE SOUTH CANTERBURY MUSEUM Ref. 4697. A postcard from 1912 depicts swimmers at Caroline Bay with the hotel in the background.

It got off to an excellent start, too, benefiting from a record tourist season in the seaside town.

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Historian and Timaru resident Jeff Elston said the Hydro was originally built in competition with the Dominion Hotel.

JOHN KEAST Timaru's imposing Hydro Grand Hotel on Bay Hill.

"It was built because of the high volume of rail traffic," he said.

At the time, 2000 to 4000 "people a day would converge on Timaru".

Designed by architects Hall and Marchant, there was "a good deal of intricate work" involved in the building's design and construction, the Herald reported at the time.

TETSURO MITOMO/FAIRFAX NZ Sue Sullivan and her brother Derry, who grew up in the Hydro Grand Hotel.

For the next 20 or 30 years, the image was seen "all around New Zealand and overseas" on postcards, Elston said.

It made regular appearances in The Press' "Timaru News" column, detailing society news.

"The hotel was iconic in New Zealand because of its triangular shape and also having a circular observatory in the corner of the building," Elston said.

JOHN BISSET/FAIRFAX NZ Hydro Grand Hotel owner Allan Booth wants to redevelop the site.

When it was initially built there were shops on the ground floor, but in the 1930s the hotel extended downwards, allowing for "huge" dining spaces, Elston said.

As the years wore on the Hydro was still a "focal point" of the town, with its boom period lasting into the 1960s.

In the 1940s the Sullivan family purchased the Hydro, Nonnie Sullivan running the hotel with the help of her extended family after the death of her husband, Joe, in 1954.

JOHN BISSET/STUFF NZ Images from inside the Hydro Grand Hotel in 2016.

Nonnie's daughter, Sue, lived there for more than 20 years, with her aunt, cousins and grandparents.

When the family first moved in, her great-grandmother was also living in the hotel, Sue said.

She said she knew every inch of the hotel, and was guiding guests upstairs in the lifts from the time she was too little to reach the lift handle.

JOHN BISSET/STUFF NZ Inside the Hydro Grand Hotel in 2016.

She used to play up in the roof, where her grandfather also found a horde of jewellery stolen from a Timaru jeweller.

"It was returned to the jewellers too."

Nonnie introduced innovations to the hotel, including regular dine-and-dances, and she also had the first smorgasbord in New Zealand.

JOHN KEAST/STUFF NZ The Hydro Grand Hotel on Bay Hill.

The whole family, including the children, were involved from time to time in the running of the hotel, Sue said.

"We just pitched in when it was necessary."

Sue remembered her mother as "charming, vivacious, and immaculately dressed" and knowing how to get the best out of her staff, who remembered her fondly years afterwards.

The honeymoon suite was something Nonnie introduced, and there were a lot of people in Timaru who thought they were "Hydro babies", Sue said.

"On a personal level I can't help but be deeply affected by [the demolition]," Sue said.

"But it's much more important on a community level than it is for our family. That site continues to hold the memories of Timaruvians.

​"Little parts of people's lives have been woven into it." ​

The accommodation side of the business remained very important in the 1960s, with Nonnie making a lot of improvements to the hotel.

"Gracious dining was an important part of the heritage that the dine and dance, and later the bars, were built on."

With the end of 6pm closing, people's drinking habits changed .

Nonnie sold the business in 1970 to begin a life with her new husband, and it was purchased by DB Breweries.

"Those years the Hydro focused on the bar trade," Sue said.

Elston said a change in attitude towards hospitality took place in the 1970s, with it being less fashionable to stay in hotels.

"The social dynamics of the time changed. Travellers did not come to the town as much," he said.

"Not a lot of money was put back into it."

The Hydro Grand, which went through different owners, was, unfortunately, "less than reputable" during the 1970s and 1980s, and the hotel began to attract bikie gangs, Elston said.

While many Timaru people have fond memories of partying at the Hydro during their younger years, Elston said it was known for under-age drinking, fights and police raids.

"It was a grand old lady, but its clothes started to get pretty raggedy and everything."

It "paid the price for its infamy", Elston said .

"It's just unfortunate that its demise has come to a property in such a grand location."

The pub closed in September 2003.

It was purchased by a syndicate of Timaru businessmen, who had hoped to demolish it to build a $60 million hotel and apartment complex on the site.

It received a temporary new lease of life in 2005 after a fire in the Richard Pearse Tavern saw that business relocate to the Hydro Grand building for 10 months.

However for more than 10 years the building sat in a state of disrepair, with their plans to redevelop it never realised.

Timaru businessman Allan Booth purchased the Hydro Grand and two adjacent sections from the syndicate in 2013.

At a resource consent hearing for the hotel's demolition in April, heritage groups fought against Booth's plans to demolish the building - classified a category 2 heritage building in the 1980s.

Dr Ian Lochead, a retired associate professor of art history, said the Hydro was "a significant example of Edwardian hotel design that is now rare due to the Canterbury earthquakes".

"As an urban, pre-world War I, Edwardian hotel building, it represents an architectural type that has completely disappeared from post-earthquake Christchurch," he said.

"This gives Timaru a unique opportunity to promote itself as a centre of architectural heritage, although clearly issues of seismic strengthening will need to be addressed."

However a Blenheim-based architect said the " lack of maintenance and dereliction over the past 13 years or more has resulted in an extreme state of disrepair".

"[I]t may be difficult to reverse in the case of this building, while maintaining or enhancing the building's heritage significance."

In a statement of evidence David McBride, chairman of the Timaru Civic Trust, said it was the "most painted and most photographed building in Timaru".

"Until the recent period of neglect by its owners the Hydro Grand has been the town's most loved piece of furniture, well-known throughout New Zealand, and a treasure of Timaru's community," the submission said.

"The Timaru Civic Trust believes there is a future for the Hydro Grand Hotel as a boutique hotel. The building is redolent with regional history, character and style,"

The commissioner decided to allow demolition, with a number of conditions placed on Booth's company - including that finance and building contracts had to be in place for the new development first.

A fire service report in September found the building was dangerous, with a risk of injury or death to anyone going inside - and the fire service also found evidence of illegal occupation in some of the rooms.

The council ruled the building officially "dangerous" under the Building Act, and the commissioner agreed to alter the consent conditions to allow Booth to demolish it ahead of time.

On Saturday it will be reduced to rubble.

Elston said while he loved old buildings, it was time to move on, and he was enthusiastic about the prospect of the new complex.

"As long as it employs a boatload of local people, it can only be a plus-plus for the town, regardless of what shape or size something is. If it's abstract to the Edwardian features of the town that becomes a plus as well, it will be a bonus."

"These are modern times," Elston said.

"I can reminisce on what used to be, but it's progress."