When former convict and talented confectioner John Webb bought a hotel on Murray Street in Hobart he installed a ballroom and a roller-skating rink.
Over the following years the hotel, which would later be known as Hadley's Orient Hotel, would see royalty, Antarctic explorers, opera stars and foreign globetrotters pass through the convict-built building.
The hotel has come a long way between the time it was built in 1834 and the present day.
Hadley's director of art and cultural experiences Amy Jackett says the building was a house and pastry shop before becoming a hotel.
Dr Jackett says when Webb combined his building purchases in 1862 he had big ideas and made Webb's Family Hotel the place to be in Hobart Town.
"He really grew the hotel and had some wild and inventive ideas to make it a really special place for locals as well as travellers," she says.
One of the signature flavours at the ice cream parlour was cucumber.
Webb was the first to profit from the use of ice commercially and ended up managing the ice houses on kunanyi/Mount Wellington.
"Later his son Alfred set up an ice cream shop right next door to Hadley's so ice cream continued to be made and enjoyed for a long time," Dr Jackett says.
The captain's secret
With help from the Hobart City Council, Hadley's has been documenting stories from throughout the hotel's history.
The Trail of Terrific Tales is open to the public and uses the voice of actor Ben Winspear and soundscapes produced by Emily Shepherd, Yyan Ng, and Al Future.
It takes visitors on an immersive audio trail of short stories around the hotel.
One is the story of a mysterious unkempt man who turned out to be a Norwegian polar explorer who would go down in history.
"In 1912 we had a captain check into the hotel, he was looking really messy and unshaven and was almost refused a room," Dr Jackett says.
She says the visitor was eventually given a small room in the hotel and hid away.
"It turned out that guest was Captain Roald Amundsen who had just returned from discovering the South Pole and winning the race to the South Pole," she says.
"From his room, he wrote secret letters to the King of Norway and his brother.
"Soon the world found out, and the journalists were so excited in Tasmania they tried to bust down the door of his hotel room to come in for an interview."
In the previous year, Australian geologist and explorer Douglas Mawson briefed his fellow expeditioners at a lunch in Hadley's before departing for Antarctica, also in the race to the South Pole.
The fake lord
Another colourful character the hotel saw through its doors was Lord Lymington, but not all was as it seemed.
"This was a guest who checked in and announced himself very proudly to be Lord Lymington and he was apparently very charming and influential," Dr Jackett says.
"But it all happened to be a case of false identity — he wasn't a lord at all.
"He had completely made up this story to escape and elope with another woman even though he was already married with nine children."
The fake lord got away with it for a few days.
"He got a very special seat at the Theatre Royal and got treated very well for a while," Dr Jackett says.
After some investigations, he was caught out and had to stand trial facing charges of wife desertion.
Special motorists
In 1905 the hotel was visited by American couple Mr and Mrs Glidden who were touring the world in their 24hp Napier car.
The pair had taken the car around the world, from the Arctic Circle to Tasmania.
"This is in the very early days of the car and they went to extreme lengths to take the car around the world," Dr Jackett says.
"They even swapped out the rubber tyres for steel for a while so they could travel across railway tracks."
When they parked out the front of Hadley's they attracted a huge crowd.
For many living in Tasmania, it would have been the first time they had seen a car.
The Tasmanian nightingale
An ad from the 1800s describes the hotel as having a piano in every room and, as the building pre-dated Town Hall, it was the location of many events and performances.
One memorable performance is that of Amy Sherwin, also known as the Tasmanian Nightingale.
Sherwin grew up on a farm in Huonville and used to go out into the paddocks to sing, Dr Jackett says.
"She was discovered by a member of an Italian opera company who happened to be picnicking nearby. He just thought she was so talented.
"Two weeks later she was singing opera in Melbourne at this grand theatre and then she ended up travelling the world and becoming the first Australian singer to make it overseas."
During a home visit to Tasmania, she sang at Hadley's to a full house.
"Apparently the people of Hobart were so excited they decoupled the horses of her carriage and carried it themselves to Hadley's where she came to sing."
Dr Jackett says Sherwin used to wake at 4am to take music lessons and she and her family loved the piano.
"When bushfires ripped through Huonville it was the only thing they tried to save," she says.
"All of the family members lifted the piano and carried it into the river and threw wet blankets over it but it did actually catch on fire.
"She kept it forever in her Tasmanian home as a reminder of that special dedication and devotion to the piano her family had."
Paris, New York, Hobart Town
The hotel was also home to the state's first roller-skating rink, which opened in 1867.
"It would have been incredibly novel at the time," Dr Jackett says.
"Roller-skating rinks had only just been popping up in Paris and New York so it was very new for Hobart, so we were right up there."
Dr Jackett says about 200 men, women, and children enrolled to learn how to skate.
"If you can imagine them in their long ball gowns and dresses, which had to be specially shortened so women could participate," she says.
But, the roller-skate instructor moved away and the venture did not last long.
The Hadley family took possession of the hotel in the 1880s and were art collectors, with some of them artists themselves.
As a nod to the art history, the hotel runs an annual art prize.
This year the winner will be announced on Friday, July 22, with the landscape exhibition open to the public from Saturday, July 23 until Sunday, August 21 from 10am–4pm.
