Current Silverton Hotel Publicans Peter and Patsy Price certainly have a story to tell.
Peter and Patsy have owned and managed various businesses for more than 56 years, but they are now preparing for a busy 2024 at the hotel with significant events such as St Pats Recovery Day, the Mundi Mundi Bash, and Broken Heel Festival, all fast approaching.
Peter, originally from Heywood in Victoria, completed his five-year plumbing apprenticeship in the late 1960s. He completed the final year of his apprenticeship in Melbourne to gain additional experience before returning to Heywood.
“My dad was a plumber in Heywood, which is fairly close to Portland, so I initially gave him a hand,” Peter mentioned.
With his apprenticeship now under his belt, doubled with some experience with his father, Peter and Patsy launched their business “Price Plumbing” in 1972.
“We continued to build the business up over the years, and we probably had a 70 per cent share of the plumbing work in Portland and Heywood.”
With more than 20 head of staff under Peter, the business focused on both domestic and commercial plumbing. The business also successfully trained 22 plumbing apprentices.
The arrival of the Alcoa Smelter in Portland in the 1980s presented a significant opportunity for the business.
With Alcoa prioritising locals to work on the construction of the smelter, Peter and his staff worked alongside 100 American contractors while the foundations for the smelter were laid.
Saying that the project “really kicked us along,” Peter and Patsy at the same time bought a drainage business from a fellow competitor. So, their business expanded to specialise in both plumbing and drainage.
However, construction of the smelter was stalled for two years shortly after the underground work was completed, and this resulted in Price Plumbing reducing their staff count to a total of four or five employees, with little work in the pipeline.
“We ultimately decided to sell the business, and we bought a caravan and 4WD and went around Australia in 1983 with the family,” Peter noted.
Four months into their travels, they arrived in Adelaide and settled in a caravan park while their children, Michelle and Paul, attended school.
However, in a strange twist of fate, Peter’s father had found an advertisement for a plumbing inspector job with the SA government. When Peter took the job, his family leased and then ultimately purchased, a house in West Beach.
While Peter enjoyed his time as a plumbing inspector, he noted “there just wasn’t the stimulation there.”
So, with Paul keen to learn a trade, Peter started “Price Plumbing” and “Adelaide Plumbing Service,” in Adelaide.
For more than 25 years, these two businesses supported the Price family, and Paul undertook, and ultimately completed, his apprenticeship under Peter and Patsy.
“We were lucky enough to get a stint working at the old Royal Adelaide Hospital. We had five or six guys working there full time, so we branched out to [complete] more specialised plumbing in a commercial field,” Peter recounted.
Ultimately Paul bought the businesses and continues this line of work to this day.
Unsure about their next stage in life, Peter and Patsy went on a re-enactment cattle drive from William Creek to Maree in 2007, and found themselves back in Silverton, Patsy’s hometown.
“We bought the Catholic Church [in Silverton] and it was in disrepair, so we were coming up every second weekend from Adelaide for a couple of years to resurrect the church,” Peter mentioned. With the purchase of the church, they also acquired a block of land behind the church for their eventual home.
At the time, the Prices were regular patrons of the Silverton Hotel then owned by Ines McLeod.
One night, as the story goes, Peter had a dream about purchasing the pub. While Patsy cheekily said, “what’s wrong with you,” Mrs McLeod instead said, “well why don’t you?”
Now the pair will be celebrating 14 years of owning and managing the hotel in 2024, and despite the many renovations to the hotel, they have ensured the ambience of the hotel “stays the old-style way.”
Peter and Patsy mused that installing a kitchen to serve hot meals was at the centrepiece of the pub’s expansions, saying that “food is now such a big part of the hotel. It’s grown considerably, including a number of events; we can do 300 lunchtime meals a day during holidays.”
The Silverton Hotel is now on the market, and Peter and Patsy are looking for enthusiastic buyers. John Langford Hotel Brokers are handling the sale of the pub, and they can be contacted on 0410 605 224 for further information.
“We’re not in a rush to sell though. We are diligent to see the right person to buy the pub,” Peter and Patsy added.
Post-pub ownership, the Prices say their first job will be to finish the house that they started 14 years ago behind the church, confirming they are “planning to stay in Silverton.”
When they finally get to move into the house, Peter added that “we will go about doing something, maybe some more travelling and spending more time with family.”
Reminiscing on their life of business, Peter and Patsy said they have thoroughly enjoyed their journey to date and hope they will enjoy many more years to come.
“It’s been a great journey, we are both in our late seventies [now] and still enjoy what we do,” he concluded.
