On 24 April 1883 Rowell purchased Lots 1 & 2 of Section 2 of Deposited Plan 292 from Frederick Clissold. In 1884 the Great Western Hotel is described as accommodating seventy to eighty persons with nearly sixty rooms. Rowell died in 1885. On 9 September 1886 Thomas Frederick Thompson and Henry Moses, wine and spirit merchants, exercised Power of Sale under their Mortgage of 1 July 1885 and transferred the property to James Hunt and Henry Thorpe, hotelkeepers. On 6 October 1887 the property was leased to Frederick Charles Goyder (1826–1900) of Katoomba. Goyder was born in 1826 in Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire. In 1856 he married Emily Stredwick in London and shortly after left England and came to Victoria. He was for many years landlord of the Victoria Hotel in Bourke Street. He was also closely connected to the sporting community and owned several racehorses one of whom was the champion called "Sussex". The couple had five sons and one daughter and for 25 years lived in Melbourne. With his hotel and sporting interests Frederick became very prosperous. In 1881 he and his sons decided to sell all their Melbourne interests and buy a sheep property in the Warrego region of NSW. However this was not a success and when he had the chance to take over the hotel he seized the opportunity. With the permission of Lord Carrington who visited the premises in 1886 in his capacity as Governor of NSW Carrington gave permission for Goyder to change its name to The Carrington Hotel. From 1885 Carrington began to make additions to the premises including an additional wing, dining hall, two drawing rooms and a music room, resulting in 119 bedrooms and seven suites of rooms, two tennis courts and flower and vegetable gardens.. He told a newspaper reporter in 1890 of the improvements he had made. The article read:  On 30 April 1888 the property was transferred to F. C. Goyder and mortgaged to Hunt and Thorpe. In 1890 Goyder became the first Mayor of Katoomba and the hotel continued to prosper. On 10 March 1898 the mortgage was transferred to Henry Thorpe and Sydney Mansfield Rowell. On 24 July 1899 the property was leased to William Frederick Goyder, son of F. C. Goyder. Goyder died in 1900 and a year later Arthur Lawrence Peacock became the proprietor on 19 September 1901. The mortgage was foreclosed on 19 September 1901 and ownership passed to Thorpe and Rowell.