Scarborough Hotel and Observation City

William Garnsworthy Bennett

Designed 1939, demolished late 80s.

Formerly on the site of what is now Observation City, Scarborough.

The old Scarborough Hotel, removed in preparation of Alan Bond's America's Cup challenge in 1987.  Photograph 1962. State Library of Western Australia.

When Australia II won the America's Cup we were as pleased as anybody until we realized what Alan Bond had in mind ... Part of his scheme involved a twenty storey hotel complex on Scarborough Beach from which the wealthy could observe the historic doings at sea ... We watched, slack-jawed as it went up around us. Nobody's ever safely established just what it took for Alan Bond to get that tower up. But in the atmosphere of hysteria and bluster that prevailed, somehow an exception was made. Just for Bondy.

   - Tim Winton (2002)