DEEP Blue Hotel and Hot Springs owners Gene and Rebecca Seabrook are hoping Warrnambool will soon restore its reputation as a bathing destination.
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The pair purchased the Worm Bay Road property in 2016 and are currently undertaking extensive onsite developments, hoping to transform the space into a tourism draw card.
The former Melbourne are adding to the accommodation, food and beverage facilities by adding a geothermal spa facility, including outdoor springs.
After successfully securing government grants totaling $1.3 million and overcoming initial Warrnambool City Council objections, owners Mr and Mrs Seabrook are excited to see the site developing.
“On Tuesday concreted pools were being welded at the site, signalling a further stage of construction,” Mrs Seabrook said.
“The armature, the framework around which the sculpture is built, is in and you can really start to imagine what it will be like sitting in an outdoor hot pool.”
The spa upgrade will include 20 geothermal mineral bathing pools, as well as rock, colour, cave, mud, salt, aromatherapy and sulfur pools.
“It will be a new two to three hour hot springs bathing experience,” Mrs Seabrook said.
“The retreat will provide numerous geothermal mineral bathing pools and other wellness experiences set in an open air setting.”
Mrs Seabrook said the sites’ geothermal water is sourced from deep in the earth and contains an array of restoring minerals.
“The facility will provide natural therapeutic solutions for the increased number of local bathers as well as huge tourism appeal for Warrnambool.”
A group of local businessmen formed the city’s Baths Company and in 1877 this consortium built and opened the Warrnambool Swimming Baths.
Warrnambool Historical Society spokesperson Janet McDonald said the development signaled a return to a love of bathing for city socialites.
“The Ozone hotel used to promote the baths as part of their tourism attractions from 1890 to 1914,” she said.
“The original baths in Warrnambool, at the east end of Lake Pertobe, and moved later to where the Historical Society is now, were sea water baths.
“The water was pumped up from the main beach from a windmill on the beach into the two outdoor pools, one of which is still there.”
“There was also an indoor bath, now The Mozart Hall, where the water was heated and piped into individual baths.
“The water was heated by a boiler, probably gas fired.”
Ms McDonald said despite the city’s reputation as a bathing destination it was important to note conditions had changed.
“Warrnambool was a health spot in the late Victorian, early Fed era however it was not heated sub-surface mineral water bathing.”
Mr and Mrs Seabrook are hoping to complete the project by April.
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