The history of the Gladstone Hotel

You can find it looking sad and dilapidated on the corner of Commissioner and Von Wielligh streets in the Joburg CBD.

According to the Heritage Portal, the two-storey old Victorian building was designed by Harry Austin Reid and was originally known as the Golden City Hotel and then the Gladstone Hotel.

Built in the early 1900s, the building was slap-bang in the middle of an area that was famous for its grand hotels and was frequently used by visiting theatre groups.

An article on sacommercialpropnews.co.za states that the Gladstone Hotel was run by an elderly couple, as a ‘mom and pop’ hotel in its later days. In the years that followed, after the hotel was shut down, the building became a commercial space and the home to many retail shops on the ground floor.

However, these days, the building is abandoned. An article published in 2012 said the building was sold for R4.4 million at an auction on 29 January of that year.

Unfortunately, the article doesn’t state what the intention for the building was, but there were hopes that it would be redeveloped as it is one of the few remaining, intact Victorian buildings in the city.

For now, it has been declared a national heritage site and is easily recognisable thanks to the Beligting Falks Lighting signage that is still on the walls.