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Crystal Hotel, Perth
For almost seventy years, Crystal Café stood next to the old Lands Title building, which was next to the Perth Town Hall. Known over time by many names including Robinson’s Crystal Café, Crystal Hotel and later the Crystal Hostel, it began life in July 1898 as a temperance-style coffee palace and boarding house. It was built to serve as an alcohol-free residential café, offering meals and lodgings to the influx of travellers and newcomers during the gold rush boom.
The name Crystal was fashionable at the time and several unrelated venues around Perth used it. Alongside the Crystal Café near the Town Hall, there was also a Crystal Palace Hotel on Wellington Street, Crystal Café Restaurant at 367 Hay Street and Crystal Café in Fremantle’s Market Street. These businesses were unrelated.
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What the Temperance Style Is
A temperance-style hotel, café or boarding house was one that deliberately avoided selling hard liquor or beer. It grew out of the temperance movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which promoted moderation (or total abstinence) in alcohol consumption. Supporters believed that alcohol caused poverty, violence, and social decline, so they encouraged the establishment of “coffee palaces,” “temperance hotels,” or “residential cafés” as wholesome alternatives to pubs. Key features of temperance-style places like the Crystal Café/Hotel included:
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No public bar: They either didn’t serve alcohol at all, or only held a limited colonial wine license (allowing sale of locally made wines but not spirits or beer).
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Focus on meals and lodging: They promoted themselves as respectable, family-friendly places to eat and stay.
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Moral and social appeal: Often advertised as “home-like” or “sober” accommodation for country visitors, women, families, or business travellers who wanted to avoid the rowdier atmosphere of pubs.
So when the Crystal opened in the 1890s as a “residential café” with a colonial wine license, it was essentially a temperance-style boarding hotel, offering all the conveniences of a city hotel, minus the full bar trade. Legislators thought wine could be safely served with meals without creating a public-order problem.
The licence referred to ‘colonial,’ as wines had to be produced locally in Australia’s colonies (e.g. WA’s Swan Valley, SA’s Barossa, Victoria’s Rutherglen, etc.) and not imported from Europe. Governments promoted this to support the fledgling Australian wine industry. By giving small businesses the ability to serve only colonial wine, they created a steady local market.
Beginnings: James and Lucy Vila
Not much is known about them personally, although Lucy lived from 1866 to 1946. Under James and Lucy Vila’s management, the Crystal Café gained a reputation for good hospitality. James regularly renewed licenses in 1898 and 1900 to operate the café/boarding-house and to serve wine. By 1900, the business was thriving enough to be noted as “one of the best-known” establishments of its kind. However, the Vila family’s tenure was relatively brief, with evidence suggesting the Vilas moved on by the turn of the century and new management took over soon after.
What It Looked Like
The Crystal was a substantial Federation-era building with 40 rooms. It had two storeys of ornamental cast-iron verandas and balconies, which faced Hay Street and a taller section with red brick, stucco detailing, pilasters and oval ocular windows adjoining it. Centrally placed near the Town Hall, it quickly became a landmark for visitors.
Thomas Stephen Robinson
By the early 1900s, the Crystal was run by Thomas Robinson and his wife Ada (previously linked to the Cremorne Restaurant, 130 Murray Street). Under the Robinsons it was marketed as a “home from home” for country people: hot and cold baths, a spacious lounge balcony and affordable rates. It remained a residential café, with its boarding hotel and dining rooms.
Strikes, Fires and Odd Incidents
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June 1903: Harold Quick, a gardener, was fined 40s (AUD ~$650 today) or 7 days’ jail for stealing two toilet covers from the Crystal and selling them to a dealer for threepence each (AUD ~$4 ea.) —a petty but telling glimpse of the times.
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May 1925: The Crystal was dragged into two disputes. During the seamen’s strike, unionists pressured boarders to leave; manager O. Rees and his sons physically kept strikers out. Days later, the tearoom girls’ strike brought demonstrations to Hay Street, with “scenes outside the Crystal Café.”
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January 1928: A bedroom fire on the upper floor was quickly contained. Water caused most of the damage.
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June 1931: Boarder Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Karger (64), an ex-Millars timber worker, collapsed and died in an upstairs passage. A post-mortem found natural causes (likely a cerebral haemorrhage) with a small head wound resulting from the fall.
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January 1940: During renovations, carpenter William Colquhoun (23) was killed when an iron verandah post fell onto him, while the old lace verandah was being demolished.
The Church Takes Over
In 1938–39 the Anglican Diocese of Perth (already owning St George’s Cathedral next door) bought the Crystal, consolidating the Cathedral precinct and turning the building into the Crystal Hostel. A £6,499 renovation (about AUD ~$960,000) in 1939 stripped the lace verandas, modernised services and likely re-planned rooms into simpler hostel accommodation, with links to the hall.
Although church-owned, the hostel remained open to anyone—country visitors, workers and later “£10 Poms.” It kept the Crystal’s long tradition as clean, respectable, affordable city lodging, just without alcohol.
The End: Demolition
By the mid-1960s Perth was modernising fast. Boarding houses and residential cafés weren’t yet valued as heritage. The City of Perth cleared the block for civic redevelopment and the Crystal (by then nearly 70), was demolished in 1968. The Law Chambers replaced it in the following year (later demolished in 2012 for the Perth City Library). The Crystal’s filigree and Free Classical detail disappeared decades before strong heritage protections existed.
The Wider Picture: Temperance vs Pubs
Temperance venues across WA often struggled. Alcohol sales supported hotel profits and wine-only houses appealed to a smaller market. The Crystal endured by adapting, first with a wine licence, then as a church-run hostel.
Architecture: What We Lost
Perth once had streets of lace-iron verandas, filigree balconies and Free Classical façades. Post-war modernism and cost-driven development favoured plain, functional boxes: cheaper to build, easier to approve and aligned with new codes and materials. Skilled trades dwindled, ornament costs soared and short building lifespans discouraged investment in artistry.
Some green shoots exist—heritage architects, restorations and even 3D-printed ornament but mainstream commercial work still follows the money and the rules.
Final Thoughts
The Crystal Café/Hotel/Hostel was never Perth’s grandest but it mattered. For seven decades it housed country visitors, workers and newcomers; weathered strikes, fires and tragedy; and bridged temperance, commerce and church mission. Nothing remains on the ground, yet its story shows how Perth grew—what it valued, and what it let go.
