The group decided it was time to step back and focus on their young families, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just such a friendly, happy place. It\u2019s a great environment to work and to be the custodian, the captain of that, is tremendously rewarding, and to see the place change in our time. It\u2019s defined my life, really.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hotel on the Crown Range Rd between W\u0101naka and Queenstown included a restaurant, year-round beer garden, and 17 ensuite hotel rooms sleeping up to 44 guests.<\/p>\n
Its facade dated back to a now-vanished gold rush town that thrived in the 1860s, when Cardrona was a bustling settlement supporting thousands of Otago gold rush miners.<\/p>\n
Cade Thornton said it employed 40 to 50 staff, and the hotel was often fully booked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe business is in really good stead. I\u2019ve got some very long-term senior staff who love the pub and their jobs and their roles, and they want to see it through with the new owner,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said the hotel attracted people from all walks of life.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll have guests arriving by helicopter, all dressed up for a nice meal, and then the local farmers will come in, leaving their gumboots by the door. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any other place quite like it in New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thornton had said he hoped the next owner would have a \u201creal passion\u201d for the pub.<\/p>\n
\u201cFifty % of buying it would be that you\u2019d have to love it. You couldn\u2019t just look at it as a business opportunity. You\u2019d have to be passionate about the business, the pub, its history, its potential,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n