Coober Pedy underground motel hits market with $2.5m price tag

It was once an opal mine but now this motel – one of the quirkiest in Australia – is offering prospective buyers a property gold mine.

The Coober Pedy Experience Motel, which still has visible opals in its walls, has hit the market with a $2.5m price tag.

The former opal mine-turned-underground motel operated as Choice Hotels’ Comfort Inn for decades before Hector Xu bought it in 2020 for an undisclosed price.

Mr Xu – who owns several accommodation businesses across Australia, including the Devils Marbles Hotel – said its uniqueness attracted him to it.

“We saw it and thought, ‘We’ve seen nothing like it’,” he said.

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The Coober Pedy Experience Motel has hit the market with a $2.5m price tag.

The underground motel is a former opal mine.

Opal can still be found in its walls.

“Because it’s underground … you don’t really see anything like it in any other part of the country.

“It’s not narrow and dark like you think it might be, it actually has huge rooms … and everything feels premium.

“Nothing compares to it.”

The motel has 16 rooms, each of which were former mine shafts used to extract opals and other stones.

It also has an underground function room, the only one of its kind in Coober Pedy, that can accommodate up to 80 people.

For ease of operating, a two-bedroom dugout with separate lounge room, kitchen and dining area for the owners is included.

The motel runs at 65 per cent occupancy and Mr Xu said there was opportunity to expand the business as there were nine rooms already carved out that were yet to be set up.

“The new owner could take it to the next level,” he said.

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It has a function area for up to 80 people.

There are 16 rooms in the hotel, with nine carved out and ready to be turned into more rooms.

It’s open and bright inside.

The site has come a long way since its humble beginnings as an opal mine, which was established in 1918.

It was mined up until the 1960s then almost three decades later Deane and Valerie Clee, who moved from Adelaide for work, bought it to use for church meetings in late 1988.

The couple’s daughter Debby ran the establishment until Mr Xu purchased it.

She said in 2020 when it was last listed for sale that they slowly transformed it into a motel using sea shells and ancient corals missed by miners decades earlier to fund construction.

Selling agent Kelli Crouch, of ResortBroker’s SA, said it would suit an owner-occupier who’s looking for a unique lifestyle with a motel that’s been a solid accommodation business for more than 30 years.