BELLERIVE Historical Society members are fighting to stop the demolition of a former inn on Victoria Esplanade.

Building designer Ian Picone has made an application on behalf of clients to demolish the single-level house and build a two-storey home.

Society member and planning historian Eve Gibson said that while the adjoining old Bellerive Hotel was listed on the Tasmanian Heritage Register of 74 houses at Bellerive and on the Register of the National Estate, the significance of the former Golden Fleece inn was not acknowledged.

She said this building was the first large commercial building on Kangaroo Point, renamed Bellerive in 1831.

It was built about 1823 by James McCormack, one of the original ferry owners, and was one of many ferry inns on the Eastern Shore. It became a family home about 1898.

Dr Gibson, who has just written a Bellerive Historical Society publication, Walks Around Historic Bellerive: The Buildings and the Characters, said the reason given for not listing the house was it had undergone significant alterations.

“However, that also applies to the Bellerive Hotel now renamed The Villa,” she said.

“It lost the upper storey to fire in the 1930s and two doorways have since been removed.”

Member and social historian Peter Macfie said the Tasmanian Heritage Council was inadequately funded and because of this much which was historic in Tasmania “slipped through the net”.

He disagreed the building had been significantly altered.

Mr Macfie said the roofline was basically unchanged except that the shingles had been replaced with tiles and the building now had steel windows.