The house
Built in 1936 and added to twice since
It started as a single-storey timber house for a sugar agent and his family, and grew by one wing in 1957 and a second floor in 1981.
The plan is all about the heat. The rooms run across the building instead of along it, so air passes through them, and there are louvres above every door. The verandahs on both levels are deep enough to keep the sun off the walls until late afternoon.
Fourteen rooms, a dining room with one long table, a bar, a plunge pool under the mango tree, and a gaming room at the back of the ground floor.
Rooms
Fourteen, across two floors
Opened
1936, as a private house
Beach
Four Mile, five minutes downhill
Reception
Staffed 6:30 to 23:00
Breakfast
6:30 to 10:00, one sitting
Dinner
18:00 to 21:30, Tuesday to Sunday
Louvre Bar
16:00 to 23:00, daily
Gaming room
18:00 to 01:00, Wednesday to Sunday
The rooms
Four kinds of room, fourteen in all
The Long Table
Breakfast is one sitting at one table
Sixteen places, laid once. Come down at eight and you'll likely end up next to someone you haven't met.
Dinner is a short card that follows what comes off the boats at the marina and what the growers up the Mossman road have cut that week: three starters, four mains, two puddings, and a vegetarian main that gets as much care as the rest.
The Louvre Bar opens at four, one room with the shutters folded back, a short list of rum and a longer one of what the local brewers are doing.
The gaming room
A small casino room at the back of the ground floor
Eight tables and a bar, open in the evenings. The casino is part of this house and shares its address.
Walk through the lobby, past the stair and the Louvre Bar, and the timber doors at the end lead in. It's about forty paces from the front desk. Staff on the floor will set a limit with you before you sit down, and the casino room closes at one.
Queensland law puts the age at 18. Photo ID is checked at the door on every visit, for every guest, including people who ate dinner here an hour earlier.
Where this is
Above the town, five minutes from the sand
Davidson Street climbs away from the main run of shops, so the house is out of the noise without being out of the way. Four Mile Beach is downhill and to the east. The marina, where the reef boats leave in the morning, is a ten-minute walk north.
Cairns airport is about an hour by road. Give us a flight number and we'll book a car.