Historic Carlton football pub hits market for first time in 60 years
It may have blue blood running through its veins, but there’s nothing of the sort on the menu at Green Man’s Arms, an historic double-storey Victorian-era pub linked to Carlton Football Club history and former Blues great Percy Jones, in Melbourne’s inner north.
Looking for a fairy-tale finals run as its sales campaign gears up for its final week, diehard footy fans have a chance to mark their territory “where Carlton drank, argued and fell off bar stools” at Percy’s Bar, as listing agency Gray Johnson puts it.
While Carlton Football Club’s birthplace, the University Hotel, was demolished in 2016, the Lygon Street corner remains one of the last surviving physical links to the club’s foundation year.
The Blues blood runs thick at the site. Former club president David Young purchased its predecessor, the Rifle Brigade Hotel, in 1925, just 2.4 kilometres from the club’s Princes Park home before building the Astor Hotel.
Now home to Melbourne’s only fully plant-based gastro pub, the Green Man’s Arms at 414-422 Lygon Street is on offer for the first time in more than 60 years, with a price guide of $2.8 million.
The freehold is being pitched as a long-term investment, with expressions of interest through Gray Johnson’s Brett Simpson and Matt Hoath.
Occupying the busy corner of Lygon and Elgin streets, the pub has served generations of patrons across its 150-year history, only swapping chicken parmas for eggplant versions nearly a decade ago.
Most famously known as Percy’s Bar, the pub was run by Jones from the late 90s until 2014, serving Blues players and celebrating and commiserating Blues supporters for generations.
Jones, a four-time Carlton premiership player turned coach, ventured into the hospitality industry after his football career.
Agents say Jones ran the front bar like a living museum, with black-and-white photos yellowing on its walls, including a snap with Gough Whitlam marking the day the new publican talked the prime minister into having a beer with him.
It was known for its sticky carpet, linoleum bar tops and $10 bangers and mash.
The pub developed a reputation every bit as colourful as its ruckman publican.
“There was the afternoon Carlton president John Elliott toppled off a bar stool and took eight patrons down with him, prompting an ambulance visit and, two weeks later, when another well-known regular repeated the feat, a question from the same paramedics: what exactly was in the beer at Percy’s?” Gray Johnson says.
One of Carlton’s last remaining links to its founding years
The site’s football significance stretches back long before the current building was erected.
Young demolished the Rifle Brigade and developed the Astor Hotel, which opened in 1927. The heritage-listed building’s name lives on through Astor Lane, which runs behind the pub.
“In the 1860s, the corner was home to the Rifle Brigade Hotel, and on September 16, 1865, it hosted a general meeting of the fledgling Carlton Football Club, a gathering reported in The Argus, called to wind up the club’s first season and organise a celebratory dinner,” agents say.
“The Blues had been founded four months earlier, on May 17, 1865, up the road at the University Hotel. But the University Hotel is long gone, demolished in 2016 to the dismay of Carlton faithful, which leaves this corner as one of the last standing physical links to the club’s founding year.
“When the Carlton playing list walked the length of Lygon Street in 2013 to reconnect with the club’s birthplace, this is where the walk ended.”
From Percy’s Bar to plant-based pub
Following Jones’ departure in 2014, the venue briefly traded as The Roving Marrow before being transformed into Green Man’s Arms in 2017.
Jones, who grew up in Tasmania and was lured to Victoria in 1966 by the chance to play in the VFL, handed over the keys after some 40 years in the hotel trade. His publican adventure began in 1975, taking over the Astor and turning it into Percy’s Bar in 1998; he also ran the Dover Hotel, opposite the Trades Hall on the corner of Lygon Street and Victoria Parade, for many years, co-held with Carlton player Adrian Gallagher.
While the venue has evolved from the Rifle Brigade Hotel to the Astor Hotel, Percy’s Bar and now Green Man’s Arms, the corner has remained a fixture of Carlton life adapting to successive generations of patrons while retaining its connection to the suburb’s football heritage.
A tightly-held Little Italy investment
The property is leased to hospitality group FGThree Pty Ltd until 2029, with two further five-year options extending potential tenure to 2039, generating a net annual income of $140,475 plus GST and fixed 4 per cent annual increases.
The 440-square-metre heritage building sits on a 225-square-metre block, with more than 24 metres of frontage to Lygon Street, as well as Elgin Street.
Hoath describes the pub as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”, with private vendors having held the property since 1966.
“The Carlton Football Club had their inaugural meeting here and their end of season dinner for their first inception,” Hoath says.
“It’s the first opportunity in 60 years to buy a pretty special part of Carlton, being a corner and securely leased. It’s the gateway of Little Italy, it’s the main drag of Lygon Street.”
Hoath says buyer interest has been strong, especially among local investors who have a personal connection with the pub.
“We’ve had a lot of people come up and say, ‘We’ve had a few beers there before,’” says Hoath.
“I think people like buying things that are familiar and people that they can actually either drive or walk by … it’s mainly been a local-centric buyer group.”
The property is for sale via expressions of interest, closing at noon on Tuesday, September 15.
