The Ōkato Hotel was built in 1875, with 16 rooms and 30-40 acres of land opposite the saleyards, by Irish-born Robert Coulter Gray (1827-1909) who came to Ōkato in 1865 after serving with the 65th Regiment then the Taranaki Military Settlers. Gray owned the hotel until his death when his son William James Gray, who had been running the establishment since 1895, took over.
The hotel is located a few hundred metres from the Hangatahua River, which was nicknamed the Stony River by early mailman Thomas Heale. The business has also been known as the Stony River Hotel, Stony River House, the Ōkato Tavern and is currently known simply as The Ōkato.
The building has undergone many alterations and had many owners and managers over the years, with some real characters including William Emeny who ran the hotel around 1912 and was nicknamed “Slippery Bill”. Edgar Meredith donated the Meredith Cup in 1923 which was contested between the Ōkato and Rahotu rugby clubs before they merged into Coastal Rugby club in 1995. Richard Delany “Len” Dunne was known as “Dad Dunne” because he encouraged young men not to drink alcoholic beverages but to enjoy soft drinks instead. Austrian couple Renate and Heimo Staudinger, who took over the hotel in 2013, believed a ghost lived in the building and was responsible for moving picture frames around - they even took a photograph of what they claimed was paranormal activity.
Related Documents
History of the Okato Hotel from Okato Memoirs Bulletin #3 (1994).
Hotel revamp tuns up cast-iron case for probe (Taranaki Daily News 9 August 2005).
See ya later to Stony River Boutique Hotel's beloved Austrian owners (Taranaki Daily News 11 October 2019)
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