The Old Clare Hotel – Sydney, Australia
Where Industrial Bones Meet Contemporary Sydney Cool
Why DNA Hotels Loves It
● A landmark adaptive-reuse hotel created from the former Carlton & United Brewery building and the original Clare Hotel pub.
● Industrial heritage is celebrated through exposed brick, steel, timber, concrete, and the building’s preserved imperfections.
● A hotel deeply embedded in Chippendale, one of Sydney’s most creative and energetic neighbourhoods.
From Brewery to Boutique
The Old Clare Hotel is a Sydney hotel with a past you can still feel. Set in Chippendale, it brings together two historic buildings: the former Carlton & United Brewery administration building and the original Clare Hotel pub. Rather than smoothing away their rough edges, the transformation by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer keeps the memory of both buildings alive. Original brickwork, exposed services, timber panelling, industrial surfaces, and traces of the former brewery remain part of the experience. This is not heritage polished into nostalgia. It is history kept raw, useful, and alive.
A Laneway Turned Into a Lobby
One of the hotel’s strongest architectural gestures is the way the two original buildings are connected. What was once a laneway between them has been transformed into a dramatic glass-roofed atrium. Today, it forms the heart of the hotel, bringing light deep into the structure and creating a moment of calm between the industrial shells on either side. It is a simple idea, but a powerful one. Old and new meet here without cancelling each other out. The building keeps its character. The hotel gains its rhythm.
Rooms Full of Scars and Style
The 62 rooms and suites are deliberately individual. Some retain exposed beams. Others reveal old brick, oversized warehouse windows, original floors, or unexpected architectural quirks that speak to the building’s former life. Freestanding bathtubs sit beneath industrial windows. Custom lighting and contemporary furniture soften the rawness without removing it. Nothing feels standardised. Nothing feels overdesigned. The rooms work because they allow imperfection to become atmosphere.
Chippendale at the Doorstep
The Old Clare belongs to Chippendale as much as to its guests. Once an industrial pocket of Sydney, the neighbourhood has become one of the city’s most interesting creative districts, filled with galleries, cafés, restaurants, studios, and cultural spaces. Kensington Street runs directly outside the hotel, bringing a constant hum of food, conversation, art, and street life. The hotel does not feel removed from this energy. It feels stitched into it. A base for discovering a side of Sydney that is more local, creative, and layered than the postcard version.
Rooftop Above the City
Above the brick, steel, and laneways, the hotel reveals a softer side. The rooftop pool offers skyline views and a sense of escape without disconnecting guests from the city below. It is the kind of space that captures Sydney’s ability to turn even an industrial setting into something relaxed, social, and sunlit. The contrast works beautifully. Raw heritage below. Blue sky above.
A Hotel with Memory
What makes The Old Clare special is not simply that it occupies historic buildings. It is that those buildings still matter. The former brewery, the old pub, the laneway, the industrial details, and the neighbourhood around them all remain part of the story. The hotel succeeds because it does not try to clean up its past too neatly. It lets the roughness stay. And that is exactly where its character lies. For travellers drawn to adaptive reuse, industrial architecture, and hotels with a genuine sense of place, The Old Clare remains one of Sydney’s defining design stays.
