The roughly 60-year-old former theater, abandoned for years, was renovated and resurrected as a boutique hotel in 2003, and may be one of the few with two active trolley tracks running right through it. The hotel's design and décor draw heavily from avant-garde and Asian styles, incorporating colors and textures of the Christchurch countryside, and pop art, photography and sculptures throughout the building. The hotel offers complimentary high-speed Internet access with a resident computer/Internet professional on staff.

The hotel's offbeat ambience is further enhanced by a Basque restaurant, Matiea Maison, that features tapas, paella and other delicacies. And that offbeat originality even extends to the guestrooms: none of them is perfectly square or the same size or with identical colors.

The two-story Christchurch hotel's 38 guestrooms come complete with Asian and Pacific décors, 100 percent wool carpets, Marino wool blankets, refrigerators, and high-speed and dial-up Internet access. Deluxe rooms feature silk duvets and drapes of black McQuarrie wool.
The Christchurch Tramway, whose tracks run through the hotel, offers tours of the central city, departing from Cathedral Square less than a block away. hotel. The Christchurch Gondola offers rides to the summit of the city's extinct volcano for views of the city, plains and harbor.