Eichardt's Private Hotel, Queenstown: Why 9 Rooms Is Exactly Enough

I had been meaning to visit Eichardt's Private Hotel for longer than I care to admit. It kept coming up when clients asked about New Zealand, so when I found myself in Queenstown in August, I made a point of going.

Eichardt's sits directly on the Wakatipu lakefront, on Marine Parade. That sounds like a standard descriptor until you are standing there in winter, the lake flat and dark ahead of you and the Remarkables visible to the southeast, their peaks draped in snow above the far shore. That view instantly stops you dead in your tracks.

And then there is the building itself, which holds just nine rooms. In a town full of adventure lodges and purpose-built ski hotels stacked up the hillside, Eichardt's has stayed deliberately small, and that is exactly what makes it incredibly unique.

A Building With a Rich History

I felt the building before I noticed any of the details. Thick walls, ceilings that clearly belong to another century. You know straight away this isn't a new build playing dress-up.

Eichardt's Private Hotel has welcomed travellers through its doors since 1861, when the building first opened during Otago's gold rush. Queenstown in that decade was at a crossroads: prospectors coming through the Southern Alps, station owners riding in from the high country, the raw energy of a settlement that had sprung up around gold and needed somewhere to sleep and eat. What has survived is a property with more than a hundred and sixty years of continuous hospitality behind it, awarded a Michelin Key in 2025.

Foley Hospitality, the New Zealand group that now operates the property and also runs Soul Bar in Auckland and Jervois Steak House in Queenstown, has done the right thing with it, and while the updates are easy enough to spot, so is the original building beneath them.

The name "private hotel" is not an accident, and it is worth understanding. In the Victorian tradition, a private hotel was a specific designation, one that signalled a degree of discretion and selectivity. It was not open to the general street trade the way a public house was. You can still feel that today in the way Eichardt's declines to announce itself, with one small sign on Marine Parade and nothing more.

The Rooms

Eichardt's has eleven spaces in total, spread across the main building and two off-site residences. Of the nine rooms in the main building, four have lake views looking out over Lake Wakatipu, with The Remarkables visible beyond the eastern shore. Two are in the heritage building; two are in the newer wing. I was shown both. There is also a Penthouse floor, which was occupied during my visit, so I cannot speak to it first-hand.

Here is the actual breakdown:

Heritage Suites (2 rooms)

These face the Skyline gondola, with a partial lake view (the angle gives you half lake, half gondola). Fireplace, bathtub, and a balcony included.

Lakeview Suites (4 rooms, 2 in the heritage building, 2 in the new building)

Direct views of Lake Wakatipu, plus fireplace, bathtub, and underfloor heated bathrooms. Rooms 2 and 3 connect via a private sitting area, as do rooms 10 and 11, so you can close things off for privacy when you want to. Worth knowing: these are the only two connecting pairs in the building, and you cannot connect three rooms together.

Gold Vault rooms (2 rooms)

A clever nod to the building's history rather than a name downgrade for an entry-level room. These face the town, not the lake, and skip the fireplace and bathtub in favour of a shower. Still fitted with underfloor heating.

The Penthouse

The Penthouse provides guests with unobstructed lake views, an outdoor barbecue grill and onsen-style jacuzzi. Its two spacious bedrooms can comfortably host a family of four.

Off-site:

• The Residence (10-minute walk). A 3-bedroom duplex with a lake view and open kitchen, ideal for a family or small group wanting extra space and the option to self-cater.
• Earl St by Eichardt's (a short walk from the heritage building). A self-contained 2-bedroom luxury residence, well positioned for easy access to the town centre.

The heritage-building room I visited sits under the roofline, with a skylight set directly above the bed. Snow-mountain light poured through it during my walkthrough. A section of the original stone wall has been left exposed beside the bed, and the wall behind the headboard is painted deep charcoal, with a small lit niche holding a single dried arrangement.

Walk past the bed and you reach what I can only call the room's kitchen: an open shelf nook with tea, spirits, and snacks, next to a small sink, before a walk-in wardrobe and, past that, the bathroom. It is a sensible flow, and it keeps the practical parts of the room out of view of the bed. The bathroom itself has a marble double vanity divided by a stone pier, a separate walk-in shower, and a freestanding soaking tub, more bathroom than most hotel rooms bother with. Through a set of doors off the sitting area, a small balcony looks straight out over the water, with a black riveted-steel fireplace inside doing a very good impression of making the coldest possible day feel rather cosy.

The new-wing room shares the same design hand almost exactly: the same fur throw and crested cushion on the bed, the same style of black riveted fireplace, the same considered minibar nook. What differs is proportion and light. The bathroom vanity here runs as one continuous marble counter rather than a divided one, the sofas are white slipcovers with a rust-striped cushion rather than solid cream, and the balcony opens onto a wider, more panoramic sweep: the lake, the moored boats, the township rooftops, all at once. A television sits above this fireplace where the heritage room had candlesticks instead, a small, telling difference between old bones and new build.

These two new-wing rooms also share a private foyer behind a single lockable door off the corridor: a small vestibule with a bench and a chair, from which each room opens through its own door. Locked, the pair becomes a self-contained unit, useful for families or travelling companions who want adjoining lake-view space without giving up separate rooms.

Neither building is wrong. It depends on whether you want the story of the original structure or the breadth of the newer view, and both are genuine options. What is worth knowing before you book: Eichardt's does not guarantee a specific room at booking. Nine rooms means there is no inventory buffer to draw on, and you get what is available when you arrive. If a particular view or the connecting rooms matter to your trip, mention it when you book, understanding that nothing can be promised. For most travellers, I think this is beside the point. Even the other room at a nine-room heritage hotel with a Michelin Key is not a consolation prize, and the alternative (a guaranteed view in a property with three hundred identical rooms) is not the same experience at all.

The minibar is replenished daily and generously stocked: spirits, wine, Champagne, local beer, soft drinks, six varieties of tea. It is the kind of detail nobody staying here is likely to think twice about. Breakfast can be delivered to the room rather than taken downstairs. In a lake-view room in August, with the mountains turning pink in the morning? Have breakfast in the room. There is no better reason to stay in bed.

Eichardt's Bar

The oldest bar in Queenstown opens at noon. I ducked in on a winter afternoon and loved it straight away: dark wood, low light, and faux fur on the seats. Through the windows, the lake was already going dark with the afternoon.

I will be honest; I did not have time to do the drinks menu justice on my visit. What I can tell you is that the bar is the personality of this hotel made physical. When a hotel is this intimate, the bar stops being a bar and starts being a living room where interesting conversations are started. You are not one of four hundred faceless guests here, you are one of a dozen, and everyone knows it. By day two, I promise you will have had a conversation with a total stranger that you never saw coming, probably over a drink you did not plan on either.

It says something that a bar this old opens this late in a town built around adventure-tour timetables, as though the day is yours to spend however you like. No rush, no itinerary.

The Parlour

Above reception, on the main hotel floor, there is a second room reserved only for guests. Where the bar sits at street level and welcomes the public, The Parlour is the private half of the same idea: a sitting room with a lit fireplace, leather wingback armchairs, gilt mirrors, and a self-serve whisky station (Glenmorangie, Woodford Reserve, Glenlivet, each with tasting notes and an instruction to dial for ice).

Jars of sweets line the corridor outside: boiled candies, gummies, chocolate fish, Jaffas, the sort of touch nobody needs but everybody notices. It is a modest detail, but one that makes you feel at home.

When to Go

Summer is the acknowledged peak. December through February brings long evenings, warm temperatures, and all of Queenstown's energy concentrated into a small lakefront town. It is spectacular and full, and Eichardt's books up fast, so plan further ahead than you think you need to.

But August surprised me. The crowds thin without the town losing its character. The Remarkables and Coronet Peak ski areas are both running, both within half an hour's drive. I am based in the Netherlands, where we know something about finding beauty in low winter light. Queenstown in August has nothing low about its light. It is crystalline and cold and, if anything, more dramatic with the peaks in full snow than it is in summer green.

Is Eichardt's a ski hotel? Not really. If your primary purpose is slope access, there are properties with better proximity. What Eichardt's offers in winter is a warm and beautiful lakefront base with that bar, that Parlour, and nine rooms worth of quiet. For me, that is the better option. Most of Queenstown's best moments happen at street level anyway: the Saturday market two hundred metres away, the walk up Queenstown Hill, the drive through the Kawarau Gorge to the wineries at Gibbston Valley twenty kilometres east.

Queenstown Airport is seven kilometres east, about fifteen minutes drive. For more options, there are several luxury hotels in Queenstown (opens in new tab) with Virtuoso perks listed by property. If your New Zealand itinerary extends beyond Queenstown, the full list of luxury hotels in New Zealand (opens in new tab) is a useful reference.

How to Book, and What You Get

Eichardt's is a Virtuoso property, which means booking through a travel advisor with Virtuoso access unlocks a set of perks at the same rate you would pay booking directly.

Through Luxury Hotel Offers (opens in new tab), those perks include an upgrade on arrival where possible (at nine rooms, this is genuinely subject to availability, but it costs nothing to have it on your booking), daily breakfast for up to two guests included in your rate, a $100 USD equivalent food and beverage credit to use during your stay, and early check-in and late check-out where the schedule allows. The F&B credit is worth noting particularly for Queenstown: it is not a cheap town, and $100 toward the bar or a dinner is money you were going to spend regardless.

You pay the same rate you would booking direct, and the perks are confirmed before you arrive.

I would recommend Eichardt's without hesitation to couples who want intimacy over scale, to anyone visiting Queenstown in winter who wants a base that makes real sense of the season, and to anyone who has stayed in too many identical rooms in too many large hotels and wants to remember what nine rooms feels like. Nine rooms, it turns out, is exactly enough.

Request a quote for Eichardt's Private Hotel (opens in new tab) to have the Virtuoso perks included before you book.