[1][2] Millers Point and the adjacent Walsh Bay have been a residential and dockyard area since the mid 19th century.
The rate book described the hotel as a three-storey brick-and-stone building with an iron roof and twelve rooms.
After the bubonic plague crisis around the turn of the century the population of Millers Point grew again and the demand for watering holes was such that the Sydney Harbour Trust had to build replacement hotels to cater to the port workers and local community.
The hotel was described as consisting of five storeys built of stone, brick and cement, with steel and timber framing.
[2] The 1916 plans of the hotel indicates a long, U-shaped bar on the ground floor with a canopy facing the main entrance.
In the basement were toilets, bottle store and the cellar with a floor hatch to provide access to the bar serving area.
In May 2015, Palisade Properties sold the renovated building to British entrepreneur Richard Sapsford in May 2015 for $17.7 million.
[2] The hotel is a seven-storey masonry building, including basement, five storeys of rooms and a rooftop enclosed bar and terrace.
The roof is an open flat area surfaced in synthetic grass set behind a parapet which includes a name plate of the hotel name.
The side facades feature projecting two storey bays with timber shingles above wide arched windows.
The Palisade Hotel is of historic significance for its association with the acquisition, redevelopment and long-term management of large areas around Sydney Harbour by the NSW Government following the outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1900.
Its prominent location and continued use demonstrates its significance as part of the social life of Millers Point.
The Palisade Hotel is significant having been designed by H. D. Walsh, an engineer important in the history of NSW especially related to developments around Sydney Harbour in the early twentieth century.
The hotel is of aesthetic significance as an exceptional example of a federation free style building with arts and crafts influences.