A family house of luck, fifteen years young
Blissuno began in 2009 as a single gaming room above a lakefront café. Today it is a boutique hotel, a casino floor and an events house in Frankton — still family-run, still dealing every hand in person, still remembering your name at the bar.
Three eras of the house
2009 — One room above a café
Marcus and Irene Ellery deal their first hands to eleven friends on a winter night. The café below does the coffee; the room above does everything else. By spring there is a waiting list, and the word "Blissuno" is painted on the door by a guest who owed the house a favour.
“We opened with eleven chairs. We never did find out who took the twelfth.”
2016 — The hotel grows upward
Seven keys become twenty-two, and the mezzanine suite is born above the new gaming floor. The Lakeview Bar opens with a pinot list of nine local cellars. The house learns the hardest lesson in hospitality: grow slowly enough that every dealer still knows the regulars.
“We measured success that year in return guests, not room nights.”
2026 — Forty-two keys, one philosophy
The Queenstown Central venue brings the conference hall and the private party room under the same roof as the suites. Forty-two keys, twelve live tables, forty machines — and the same brass desk where every booking is still confirmed by a person, face-to-face.
“Bigger rooms, same house rules. Luck is personal here.”
Three panels, painted on the house wall
Presence is the product. Every game, meal and greeting happens in the room, with people in it.
Small enough to know your usual, honest enough to tell you when the house is winning.
Queenstown first: local wine, local dealers, local weather in every window.
Signed by the whole house — every dealer, host and chef adds their initials to the philosophy board each January. It hangs beside the brass desk; ask to see it.
Come and read it in personThe people behind the brass desk
Marcus Ellery
Deals the occasional Sunday shoe and remembers every regular's first bet. Writes the house rules in ink.
Irene Ellery
Runs the brass desk and the welcome ritual. If your suite smells of cedar on arrival, that was her note.
Tane Wiremu
Fifteen years dealing across Otago, now keeper of the tables, the stakes and the beginner's hour at six.
Sofia Marchetti
Milan-trained, Central Otago converted. Her late menu exists because dealers get hungry at midnight too.
Noah Fitzgerald
The two-hour reply is his personal record streak. Books tee times, taxis and tables with equal calm.
Marama Hohepa
Choreographs the conference-to-ballroom transformation in ninety minutes flat. Keeps every guest list sealed.
What the house built when nobody asked it to
Research, restoration and the odd beautiful detour.
The 1908 Frankton façade
When the neighbouring storefront came up, the house restored its 1908 timber façade instead of replacing it — now the east entrance guests photograph on the way in.
See it on a visitThe Dealer's Ledger study
An in-house study of fifteen years of table notes — what games teach beginners fastest, and why the six o'clock hour works. Shared with Host Responsibility trainers nationwide.
Ask the gaming managerThe Frankton Long Night
Every June the floor plays host to a charity games night — the town's clubs, the house dealers, and every dollar of the drop going to the local food bank. Eleven years running.
Join the next oneThe pinot wall
A research project that got out of hand: cataloguing every Central Otago pinot noir worth pouring, then building it a wall. Nine cellars, one bar, endless arguments settled nightly.
Taste the researchThe shelf by the brass desk
NZ Boutique Hotel of the Year
Hospitality NZ Awards
2024Best Guest Experience
Queenstown Business Chamber
2023Host Responsibility Excellence
Department of Internal Affairs citation
2022Wine List of Distinction
NZ Sommeliers & Wine Professionals
2025Fifteen years, counted honestly
Numbers from the ledger we keep behind the desk — the same one guests sign on their first visit, and again, usually, on their fifth.
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