The Federal Coffee Palace was a large, elaborate French Second Empire style 560 room temperance hotel in the city centre of Melbourne, Victoria, built between 1886 and 1888 at the height of the city's 1880s land boom, and demolished in 1972-73.^[2] Located on Collins Street, the premier thoroughfare, on the corner of King Street, near Spencer Street Station (the address is now 555 Collins Street), it is prominent in lists of the buildings Melburnians most regret having lost.^[3]

The Federal Coffee Palace was by far the largest and grandest product of the late 19th century temperance movement in the southern hemisphere. The Age wrote that the £150,000 hotel was one of "Australia's most splendid" buildings; in fact, it was "one of the largest and most opulent hotels in the world".^[4][5]

With seven main floors and two more in the corner tower, it was the most massive of the rash of large tall buildings built in the central city in the 1880s boom. The height to the top of the corner dome was 165 ft (50 m),^[6] its height to roof of 48m exceeded the 43m Fink's Building completed the previous year making it briefly Melbourne and Australia's tallest building until completion of the Australian Building in mid 1890, which measured 53m to the top of its corner spire.

The Fedral was designed in an eclectic style, with an array of Renaissance Revival details and French Second Empire style mansard roofs^[11] Ellerker & Kilburn designed the building with multiple setbacks to relieve its great bulk whilst making an impressive visual statement with the lofty corner dome. The setbacks were punctuated by a mixture of recessed and projected balconies, forming a loggia arcade near the base, and large vertical classical temple-like structures. The external stucco facade combined a staggering array of distinctive decorative features of the period. The main entrance was paired giant order ionic columns in a large Paladian arrangement. Other external features included extensive use of diocletian windows, festooned round windows, baroque styled broken and nested pediments complete with detailed reliefs, pilasters, , balustered balconies, oriel windows, keystones, niches, sculptured statuary, curved walls, cast iron lacework and cresting. The building also featured several gargoyles which were later removed, including lions and gryphons on the upper storeys.

The interiors were equally impressive, often attributed to William Pitt featured a huge sunlit, four storey lobby with vaulted roof and grand staircase, and a main hall reached via a long arcade loggia of 14 Ionic columns.^[11] The elaborately detailed interior atrium featured giant order composite columns culminating in a Palladian architecture styled arch flanked by vault archway openings.

Skyscrapers by contemporary definition are 10 storeys tall and exceed 50 metres. The Federal at 9 storeys narrowly misses the criteria for floors but qualified for height when the tower is included. It had a 7 storey height to roof of 156 ft (48 m) and to the additional 2 storey habitable tower of 165 ft (50 m) making it briefly Melbourne and Australia's tallest building, exceeding Fink's Building (43m) in 1888 and until completion of the Australian Building (53m) in mid 1890.^[22]

Despite the lack of a steel frame, and partly due to tall ceilings, its height to roof was also among the highest in the world for a habitable building in 1888. Contemporary skyscrapers in New York and Chicago were not much taller. The Federal was just 5 metres short of New York's tallest hotel, the 1884 Hotel Chelsea. It was just a few metres shorter than some of North America's tallest office buildings, just a metre less than the 1887 Wilder Building, 5 metres less than the Rookery Building completed the same year and 9 metres shorter than the 1886 Potter Building, considered among the earliest steel framed skyscrapers. It would have been dwarfed by very few including the tallest towers in the world, the 1875 New York Tribune Building and 1885 Chicago Board of Trade Building (but would have almost reached its roof) as well as the 12-storey Washington Building of 1887, which was 67 metres (220 ft) to the roof.

Its guests included Alexander Graham Bell, Herbert Hoover, and Mark Twain.^[4]

Federal Hotels P/L, seeking funds to develop Hobart's Wrest Point Casino sold it to developers Artagen Property Group (a subsidiary of a London based company) in 1971 for $3,730,794.^[23] Closure and demolition for a $12 million 23 storey office development was announced, commencing March 1972^[23] and completed in 1973.

Unlike many other historic buildings in the city the National Trust did not list the Federal and chose not to oppose the demolition, at the time it was concerned mainly with preserving of earlier colonial era buildings and houses,^[24] though in 1971 it had listed the nearby much smaller 1890 Olderfleet in response to its acquisition by developers, one of few similar type of buildings to be Trust listed. No green ban was attempted.

Disinterest in preservation of the Federal can be explained in part by its failure to compete as hotel accommodation despite attempts at modernisation and the stark contrast of the patchwork interiors between the modern and remaining Victorian features. According to historian Robyn Annear elaborate Victorian buildings were “really on the nose” and the Federal's creaky floorboards and lack of ensuites were an "extreme embarrassment" in a city desperate for progress in the late 1960s and early 1970s.^[25] However it was mostly due to its prominent association with the speculative land boom. Elaborate buildings including the Federal were painted in a negative light at the time as they were constructed speculatively with excessively large amounts of borrowed funds many of which were never paid back. In particular, the association with James Munro carried with it strong links to the city's total economic collapse and corruption prior to the Australian banking crisis of 1893. Michael Cannon's influential 1966 book 'Land Boomers' was frequently cited as justifications to rid Melbourne of the embarassment of the land boom era, his book had whole chapters dedicated to the speculative financial backing behind the Federal Coffee Palace.^[26]

In response to public regret of the demolition of the Federal and other significant buildings at the time including the Menzies, the Historic buildings act 1974 and Historic Buildings Preservation Council were introduced.^[27] Ironically justifications cited for not saving the Federal were used to support the preservation of the Windsor just years later, the Windsor's preservation benefiting from its proximity to Parliament and the new laws introduced following the demolition of the Menzies, Federal and others which saw the Windsor become the last surviving luxury hotel of the Victorian era.

Some elements of the building were carefully removed by Whelan the Wrecker; three of the four female statues by modeller Charles William Scurry were relocated to the then new Chateau Commodore in Lonsdale Street, and when that changed hands over 20 years later, they were donated to the McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery in Langwarrin outside Frankston, Victoria in 1996, and a panel of the cast-iron stair balustrade (with 'FCP' in the pattern) was donated by Myles Whelan to the Museum of Victoria in 1992.

The Federal's replacement, the 23 storey Enterprise House was completed by 1975.

In 2017 approval to replace Enterprise Houes with a 46 level hotel and apartment tower was granted.^[28] In 2019 the design changed to a 35 level office building with retail at ground level.^[29]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Federal Coffee Palace.

• Architecture of Melbourne
• Coffee Palace
• Photos taken in 1972 by Graeme Butler shortly before demolition on Flickr
• List of demolished buildings and structures in Melbourne