As the Lyceum Hotel in Longreach was burning last Thursday evening, its owner, Lee McCracken, was watching the shocking vision live from St George.
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“It was very distressing,” he said. Mr McCracken tuned into a livestream feed of the Eagle Street conflagration on social media after a phone call from his daughter, who lives in Longreach, alerted him to the fire at the historic hotel he’s owned since 2004.
“I was absolutely flabbergasted to hear it was on fire,” he said.
“It’s solid brick – the only timber is in the doors, the verandahs, floorboards and ceilings – so there’s not much combustible material.
“I was always under the impression it was a very safe pub.”
Authorities were alerted to the fire in the 18-room structure at around 8.15am. There were no casualties and no adjoining property was damaged.
Mr McCracken, speaking from St George, said he’d not been able to drive to Longreach to assess the damage for himself yet due to a shortage of hotel managers for his other licensed premises.
Once he had been to Longreach, hopefully this week, he hoped to be able to say whether the building was repairable, and what the future of the century-old pub might be.
He had had a lessee running it for nearly five years but dismissed him just after Easter this year.
The hotel had been closed since then while Mr McCracken undertook renovations.
“The only reason it closed was because Liquor Licensing hadn’t approved my interim licence, so I thought if I had to close it for a week, I may as well do it properly and get the renovations done,” he said.
He had planned to remove the 1970s lime green bar decor and go back to a more heritage style of furnishing.
He said the work was supposed to have been completed but his builder had been admitted to hospital in Toowoomba.
He refuted the suggestion that the Lyceum Hotel was for sale, saying that was never the case.
“I was working out my options but the main one was to put a couple in and get it operational again.”
Mr McCracken was concerned that the building had been broken into while he had had it closed.
“A week before the fire, police contacted me to say there’d been a break-in,” he said.
“Stuff was missing and doors were unlocked that shouldn’t have been.”
Police have put out a call for witnesses who may have seen anything, to help them determine the cause. Anyone with information to share should contact Policelink or the Longreach CIB.