It’s thumbs up from John and Dan (left), who called into the Round Hill Hotel in Morven on their weekend travels and enjoyed a cold beer poured by new publicans Dan Mumby and Deb Muller. Photos: Vanessa Hayden.
Morven’s Round Hill Hotel is undergoing a transformation and will morph into a grand country pub experience when its 12-stage renovation is complete.
It is now under the proud ownership of Daniel Mumby and Deborah Muller, who bought the run-down property in 2024 and declare they are not just going to restore it to its former glory but make it a pub that “anyone in the local area can be proud of”.
Known locally as the Morven Pub, the iconic watering hole sits seven kilometres east of Culcairn, beside the Billabong Creek.
It was once a Cobb & Co staging post on the main road between Melbourne and Sydney and at one time was frequented by Dan (”Mad Dog”) Morgan, who terrorised the district in the late 1800s. In the 2021 Census, the village had a population of about 125 people.
Dan, 58, says he and Deb were drawn to the area by a series of coincidences “that couldn’t possibly have been a coincidence” and they are now relishing the challenge of turning the 160-year-old hotel into something special.
“I don’t think it’s an accident that we are here,” Dan told Region.
“There were lots of serendipities. I know that before we bought this pub, nine other people had told me that they’d passed on it, just because of the scale and size of the thing.
“The week before we found that this might be available, we took a visit down to Balldale [near Howlong] and it is a similar size, age and bush aspect, so could be held up as a sort of gold standard of what we are hoping to achieve here. I’ve heard there was around $2 million spent on that restoration.”
Dan’s plan is to remodel the building from a 50-seat “shearers’ pub” to a 350-seat country dining experience with an old-school feel and “no buzzers, no QR codes and no horses running around on big screens”.
“We will have all table ordering and table service and no pokies or Keno. We’ll be old-school on the service and the menu.
“Deb and I are hoping to build the sort of pub we like to go to and hopefully, if we get that right, a few other people will agree with us.”
The biggest challenge so far has been termite damage.
“There was substantial termite damage at the front of the pub; actually, I don’t know how it was still standing. It wasn’t really that we had a termite problem, I think the termites left many years ago when they ran out of food,” Dan laughed.
“I think it was just the paint holding it together.”
So far, they are three stages through their 12-phase plan, with the amenity a constant work in progress.
Here’s cheers to new beginnings for Deb Muller and Dan Mumby, who have taken on the ambitious project of restoring the Morven Pub to its former glory.
There’s plenty of clean-up still to be done, but some seating areas have been improved, cold beer is on tap, the car parking’s been upgraded and some overnight spaces for caravans have been introduced. The bar is now open from noon seven days a week and you can also buy takeaway alcohol.
Plans include extending the building to include a general store, a cafe and a dedicated bottle shop. The kitchen is about to be given the Midas touch and Dan hopes they’ll be serving meals in time for the Henty Field Days in September.
Ambitious? Yes. Daunted? No.
“The pub’s never been viable enough for previous publicans to reinvest in it,” Dan says. ”The gaps and the spaces and the opportunities have been there, but nobody has been able to capitalise on them, and timing is everything.
“I’ve renovated six houses and I used to be in business investment. I’ve also worked in bars for 20 years, so for me it’s sort of a coming together, the perfect storm, of all my background in those environments.
“In the country, people will drive for an hour to visit a good pub and Morven is only an hour’s drive here for around 200,000 people.”
In recent years, the hotel made local news when its “fed-up” publican took to the walls with an axe when she became frustrated with the work required at the venue.
“Well, we found the axe,” Dan chuckles “and it will go up on the wall as part of the memorabilia.”
The pair say they are in for the long haul and will make Morven their home for some time.
“It’s not just about repairing, rebuilding and restoring it as meticulously as we can, this is a business, we are launching it and it’s an ongoing concern.”
Big dreams in a tough environment, he reckons.
“Well, there’s an old phrase in farming, but it applies to pubs too: ‘How do you make a small fortune in a pub?’ he propounds. ‘You start out with a large fortune’.”
The Morven Pub is located at 38 Brownrigg Street, Morven. They’re open only for drinks (no meals) from noon seven days a week. You can expect to see Dan down tools from the surrounding worksite and step behind the bar to serve you.
