Blackler Smith & Co clients – The Bolton Hotel

The Bolton Hotel

Our clients are always up to interesting activities, and we are proud to be associated with them. We’d like to share one with you:

You may wonder why The Bolton Hotel has so many wonderful pieces of art by the well-known New Zealand artist, Rita Angus.

The owner of The Bolton Hotel is Warwick Angus and he happens to be Rita’s nephew. Rita passed away in 1970 and through his family connection Warwick managed to secure the copyright to a large number of her art works, many of which have not been seen in public before.

Art may have been in Rita’s blood, but for Warwick it was building. He worked for the family firm for 40 years and it was during this time that he came across the Bolton site. It was a car park at the time but he could see its potential as a good site for a hotel, as it offered protected daylight on all four sides as well as a lovely aspect to the Wellington western hills and the city. Under Warwick’s direction The Bolton Hotel was built, and it opened on the 1st of February 2005.

The transition from the construction industry to hotelier was a big step. Warwick has many stories of the things he learnt along the way. One of the most memorable was in the early days of the hotel when Warwick thought it might be a nice gesture to return a lady’s earrings found in one of the hotel bedrooms. A short time later Warwick received a telephone call from the lady of the house to say, “thank you, but these are not my earrings”.

The Bolton Hotel team has matured since those early days and Warwick is extremely proud of the hotel, its independence with no allegiance to a hotel chain, and its many successes as a top ranked Wellington hotel. Warwick puts the success of The Bolton Hotel down to the skill, dedication and hard work of management and staff. He also gives credit to Blackler Smith & Co for their tremendous assistance particularly in the formative years of his businesses.