Since its establishment in 1875, Sorrento’s Hotel Continental on Australia’s Mornington Peninsula has been beloved by holiday makers and locals from across Victoria. Lively and glamourous, a stay at the Continental was time spent in the town’s social heart – with music, ballroom dancing, and the best service the coast had to offer. As Woods Bagot announces our appointment as the lead designer on the Hotel’s reinvention, we bring with us a sense of Modern Nostalgia – an emotional connection to the icon’s past, present and imminent reconnection with Sorrento’s beachside sophistication – and a commitment to restore European glamour and luxury to the Mornington Peninsula.

“This is the restoration of an iconic project by the father of Melbourne’s theatre scene, George Coppin,” says Woods Bagot CEO and long-time St Andrews Beach resident Nik Karalis. “The redesign of the entire precinct will finally reinvigorate the Hotel Continental together with the town centre and boost regional tourism with a European luxury venue laced with Modern Nostalgia.”