Villiers Building is a modern office block on the corner of Victoria Street and Loch Promenade in Douglas.
This building is built on what was formerly the site of the Villiers Hotel.
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The building is currently unoccupied but it was announced in October 2018 that the site had been bought by Isle of Man-based Tevir Group.
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"The current buildings occupying the corner of Victoria Street and the seafront were completed in 1999, when the Royal Bank of Scotland took up residence there."
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"One of the best-loved hotels in Douglas, the Villiers, was named after Governor Loch's wife and was one of the first to built on the newly re-claimed Loch Promenade in 1878. It offered and imposing first impression of Douglas as trippers pourednoff the boats and its many bedrooms and fine function rooms provided top class accomodation.
Even in its later years, up until the 1980's, its function rooms were used by a numbr of societies and clubs for their dinners and meetings, and the Clock Room buffet was a popular lunch time venue."
"The demise of the Villiers Hotel was painful. For many years it stood empty and increasingly derelict. The ownershad a plan to rebuild it as an exact replica, and this was announced to the media, fronted by Judith Chamlmers who was flown in for the day for a special gathering in the Aragon Hotel in Santon. However, the developers soon wer at loggerheads with the Department of Tourism about the amount of grant they would receive for a new hotel under various schemes the government was running.
It was acrimonious and the issue was never resolved. Meanwhile, notices were served concerning the unsafe and dilapidated state of the site and fines were levied.
In the end, the site was sold and developed by AXA Equity and Law.
As the development started the Planning Committee were offered a choice of either a replica of the old building or a new, innovative building, keeping the rhythms and massing of the nearby boarding houses, including the vertical bays. They choose the latter.
Sadly, the scheme was never finished and a large area of the site remains undeveloped."
Source: "Then and Now around the Isle of Man" by Miles Cowsill, Charles Guard and Steve Jackson (ISBN: 978-1-907945-17-5)