This building has always kept something under lock and key
You are looking at a former ship chandlery — Quartz Bays has traded rope and tinned stores for card tables, four tables, a house dealer at each, nothing online, nothing streamed, in Albany.
Frank Verran kept the counter, and little else
The chandlery at 145 York Street outfitted whaling boats and merchant ships for the best part of a century, its shelves stacked with rope, canvas and tinned stores.
Trade thinned once the fleets moved on, and Frank Verran, the last clerk to keep its ledger, bought the building rather than watch it sold for parts. You can still see why he stayed: the walls keep an even temperature no matter the season.
Verran cleared the shelves, kept the stone counter where supplies were once weighed, and set four card tables where the rope used to hang.
1880s
Built as a chandlery for the harbour trade.
Frank Verran
Bought the building and cleared it for cards.
Today
Four tables, one house dealer, a small servery.
A closer look at what Verran kept
