Hydro site owners buy motel

Timaru’s Sea Breeze Motel has been sold to prominent Timaru businessmen Allan Booth and Alan Pye, who also own the neighbouring former Hydro Grand Hotel site.

They bought the motel, at 28 The Bay Hill, for $1.69 million, and it was one of two high-profile central Timaru sites up for auction yesterday. Both sites were owned by the Lambie family.

The other site, the historic house at 27 The Terrace, overlooking Caroline Bay, built in 1882, was bought for $1.15m via telephone bidding by a mystery Timaru businessman.

While the Seabreeze Motel has potential as a development site, Booth said there were no immediate plans to renovate it.

‘‘We just bought it. We need some time,’’ he said.

The motel auction saw heated bidding between Pye and two other bidders. Pye said he had thrown in the towel until Booth came to him during bidding.

‘‘I would like to thank him,’’ Pye said.

An agent bidding on behalf of the buyer of The Terrace home said he wanted to remain anonymous.

‘‘He owns a development company, and the house will redeveloped,’’ the agent said.

The house is perched on 1201 square metres of land at the northern end of The Terrace with 180-degree ocean views.

Owned by businesswoman Ruth Lambie from 1994 until her death in July, the house was also once home to Russell Hervey, a long-standing former Timaru city councillor and mayor.

Ruth’s son Tom Lambie said while he was emotional about the sale ‘‘it was also nice to see it had gone to good Timaruvians’’.

‘‘We’ve now handed it over and it’s interesting to see what they now want to do with two excellent sites.’’ be