The Bachelorette finalist Stu Laundy’s share of a $400 million family fortune was built from taking over a single pub in Sydney’s working class inner-west at the end of World War II.
Since then, through the hard work and canny investments of his parents and grandparents, Laundy’s family has amassed a hotel portfolio among the biggest in Australia.
Stu’s father Arthur, now 76, can still be found most days working at the Laundy headquarters in the Twin Willows Hotel at Bass Hill in Sydney’s south-west.
While viewers were waiting to see if Stu would win the heart of Sophie Monk on Thursday night, Arthur was away in Queensland on hotel business.
Stu Laundy is a third-generation publican in a family business that was founded back in 1945
Heir to a $400m family fortune, Stu on set with The Bachelorette star Sophie Monk
Stu Laundy’s father Arthur, 76, can still be found most days working at the Twin Willows Hotel
Stu’s brother Craig has been the Federal MP for Reid in Sydney’s south-west since 2013
Father-of-four Stu, 44, is the third generation of Laundys in the pub game and manager of the family company.
Stu’s brother Craig, 46, is assistant industry minister in the Turnbull government, after previously working for Laundy Hotels.
The Laundy family pub business began more than 70 years ago when Arthur’s parents Arthur Sr and Veronica took on the Sackville Hotel at Rozelle in 1945.
Arthur Sr – one of seven children – had grown up tough, sent to an orphanage when he was six after his parents divorced.
‘He taught me how to survive,’ the younger Arthur once told the Financial Review.
Arthur was just four years old when his father secured the licence to the Sackville and grew up around pubs at a time almost all hotels were owned by breweries.
The next big family move came when the Laundys bought real estate at Bass Hill in Sydney’s south-west in 1962 and built the Twin Willows Hotel.
Australian pub baron Arthur Laundy has been in the hotel industry for more than 50 years
The Bachelorette’s Stu Laundy (top right) with brother Craig and sisters Justine and Danielle
Sophie Monk learnt during The Bachelorette that suitor Stu Laundy has had a vasectomy
Sophie Monk and Stu Laundy of the famously rich pub family on the set of The Bachelorette
That pub – described as the ‘mecca of Laundy Hotels’ on the company’s website – is still the headquarters of the family business.
While Arthur Sr and Veronica were building the Twin Willows, their son had the leasehold of the Royal Exhibition Hotel at Surry Hills in Sydney’s inner city.
In 1969 the family was struck by tragedy. Arthur Sr was killed with three Twin Willows staff when a light plane he was piloting went down in Burrendong Dam, Wellington, in central western NSW.
Young Arthur, who was in Italy when his father died, took control of the family business, which was then just two hotels, the Twin Willows and the Hume Hotel at Yagoona, also in Sydney’s south-west.
He married Margaret Paul in 1970 and together the couple built what became a successful pub empire.
Craig Laundy, who has been a Federal MP since 2013, worked for years in the family business
Federal MP Craig Laundy (left) got ‘the brains’ of the family while his brother Stu ‘got the looks’
The Sackville Hotel in Sydney’s inner-west was the first pub in the Laundy family portfolio
‘They thrived in the hotel industry, going from strength to strength,’ the Laundy Hotels website states.
Arthur was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2004 and recognised as Hotelier of the Year by the Australian Hotels Association in 2006.
‘Thoroughly deserving – the award was recognition for his 50 plus years of service to the industry,’ according to the Laundy Hotels website.
‘Though Veronica Laundy and Margaret Laundy never received an award, they have worked extremely hard to achieve such success.’
‘The Laundys learned hospitality the old-fashioned way. We pride ourselves on good service and providing friendly, social environments.’
Upon entering the AHA’s Hall of Fame in 2007, Arthur said: ‘I literally grew up in hotels’.
The Golden Fleece Hotel at Liverpool in Sydney’s south-west is one of the Laundy family pubs
The Albion Park Hotel near Wollongong is one of dozens of the hotels the Laundys have owned
Family patriarch Arthur Laundy has been in and around pubs since he was just four years old
‘I remember as a kid, the country was still feeling the effects of rationing from the war and times were tough. I helped my parents set up the hotel for trade each morning before school and that’s where my love of the industry began.’
Arthur Laundy has remained on the Financial Review Rich List since he entered it when aged 72 in 2013 following a lucrative joint pub venture he struck with Woolworths the previous year.
The family patriarch credited Stu with engineering the Woolworths deal. ‘Being a publican is in dad’s blood,’ Stu told the Financial Review at the time.
Arthur added; ‘I just live for my pubs.’
In the 2017 Financial Review Rich List, Arthur was listed as worth $412million.
The family’s pub interests now stretch up and down the east coast of NSW and into the centre of the state, controlling dozens of hotels.
They run the inner city Quarryman’s Hotel at Pyrmont and Off Broadway Hotel at Glebe, the Red Lion Hotel at Pyrmont and the harbourside Woolwich Pier Hotel.
Stu Laundy is set to inherit a share of his father’s $400million fortune built from running hotels
The Bachelorette finalist and Sydney pub fortune heir Stu Laundy kisses Sophie Monk
Stu Laundy’s brother, Federal MP Craig Laundy (left), with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
On the Central Coast the family has the Bateau Bay Hotel, Chittaway Bay Hotel, Long Jetty Hotel and Settler’s Tavern at West Gosford.
They have the Panania Hotel and Liverpool’s Golden Fleece Hotel, both in Sydney’s south-west, and the Plumpton Hotel in Sydney’s west.
Their portfolio also includes the Heritage Hotel at Wilberforce on the Hawkesbury River, the Tea Gardens Hotel Motel on the mid north coast, The Swansea Hotel at Lake Macquarie and the South Dubbo Tavern in the state’s west.
The family has previously controlled the Manly Pacific, bought for $53 million and later worth $100million, and the Steyne Hotel – one of Sydney’s most valuable – in the same northern beachside suburb.
All of Arthur and Margaret’s four chidren have worked in the industry. Daughter Justine Tindall and son-in-law Nick Tindal are part of the family’s business and daughter Danielle has worked in the liquor industry for many years.
Until The Bachelorette, eldest son Craig was the most visible Laundy.
Arthur Laundy can be found working at the Twin Willows Hotel in Sydney’s Bass Hill most days
Stu Laundy pictured on the Gold Coast during the filming of The Bachelorette this month
Stu Laundy, pictured with The Bacherolette’s Sophie Monk, works in the family’s pub business
MP Craig Laundy says he got the brains in his family while his brother Stu got the looks
Craig attended St Patrick’s College in Strathfield, St Joseph’s College at Hunter’s Hill (as did Stu) and graduated with a Bachelor of Economics from the University of NSW.
He is married to Suzie Crowe. The couple have three children.
Craig has teased his younger sibling on Twitter during the course of The Bacherolette, and famously admitted ‘I got the brains, he got the looks’.
He was elected to Parliament for the seat of Reid in Sydney’s south-west in 2013 when the Coalition ousted Labor from office.
Among Craig’s mischievous Tweets, he has mocked the champagne-sipping Stu for his fumbling attempt to pour Sophie Monk a glass of bubbly.
In 2014 the family received unwanted public attention when a dispute between Arthur and his sister Robyn De Angelis over their mother Veronica’s will went to court.
That dispute was eventually settling.
The De Angelis branch of the clan also works in the pub business, running a separate hotel group.
Stu Laundy (right) has been known as a party boy and has dated a host of beautiful women