The Old Clare Hotel

For decades, The Clare Hotel was the drinking hole of choice for the working and creative classes of Sydney’s Chippendale district; rough, unpretentious, and with more than a few layers of history.

After sitting vacant for many years, the site was snapped up by developers Unlisted Collection, who came to us with a brief to reimagine it as a 62-room boutique hotel and bar that would put this area on the map once more – while paying homage to the pub’s past glories.

Working together with Right Angle Studio, we responded with a new name and personality for the hotel: Old Clare. This matriarchal spirit would permeate the hotel, providing a dry and direct tone of voice that would lend a layer of rough-and-ready charm to the more luxurious surroundings.

Old Clare allowed us to have conversations with guests and surprise them along the way; with her blunt, yet poetic observations appearing across all the hotel’s collateral and communications.

This new character is now a familiar face in Chippendale’s evolving cultural landscape; sitting at the heart of urban transformation, while keeping a sense of history intact.