OneRoof has reported the owners of the iconic Blackball Inn and 08 Cafe, Jane Wells and Pat Kennedy, have slashed the asking price for the pub by hundreds of thousands of dollars to sell it.
The Blackball Inn includes a bar, accommodation for 12 and an owner’s flat. It has an asking price of $450,000.
The neighbouring 678s qm corner section, currently used for guest parking, is for sale for $100,000, OneRoof reported.
The properties could be purchased together for $550,000. The couple first put it on the market two years ago for $789,000.
Wells told OneRoof the sale has a deadline of September 19, after which they would close the inn’s doors for good if they hadn’t sold.
The date would also mark their fifth anniversary as the inn’s owners.
Wells and Kennedy are both well-known in Blackball. Kennedy grew up in Blackball, while Wells told OneRoof she was initially unimpressed when she first drove through it in the 1970s.
“I thought it was the pits. I said what an a**hole of a place. All the houses were unpainted, the Hilton was derelict, every house down the main road had a big coal heap in front of it," Wells told OneRoof.
She had been working as a teacher at Christchurch at the time and had been planning an architecturally-designed home there.
But after accepting a job offer in nearby Cobden ended up buying a house in Blackball for $3000 and moving there.
The Blackball Inn and 08 Cafe officially opened in September 2019.
Wells told OneRoof the decision to open the inn in the town coincided with the opening of the Paparoa Track, which was one of New Zealand’s Great Walks, the year earlier which significantly boosted the number of visitors to the town.
