Although much altered, the Terminus Hotel has local significance as a major township building constructed in the late 1880s at the opening of the Healesville railway. The hotel has historical significance for its associations with the district coaching service, and was used at the turn of the century as a booking office for Cobb and Co. The Terminus Hotel is one of three surviving early Healesville hotels, the others being the Grand Hotel (1894) and Healesville Hotel, built in 1912 to replace an earlier 1860s hotel on the same site. The Terminus Hotel has associations with a number of important district hoteliers, including Patrick Daly (the first owner) and his brother-in-law, Michael Sheehan, and their families.

The Terminus Hotel was originally a two storey building dating from the 1880s. In the 1970s fire destroyed most of the original structure. The present hotel is a long, single-storey cream-painted building located on Harker Street near the corner of Healesville-Kinglake Road. The front of the building has a short skillion roof covering the verandah and slightly overhanging the front walls. It is clad in maroon decromastic tile. The hotel has an inset central verandah on its Harker Street (north-eastern) elevation supported by three simple square-section brick columns. Double doorways open onto the verandah, and twelve-pane double-hung windows are positioned all along the Harker Street elevation. Most of these windows appear to have retained their original sills. A number of mature exotic plantings, including oaks, stand in front of the hotel.

A cream-painted brick extension has been made to the northern end of the building, including a drive-in bottle shop. The rear, or western end of the hotel has been substantially altered. Accommodation units, separate from the hotel building, have been constructed in the area to the rear of the hotel and are accessible via a driveway and carpark, from Harker Street. The interior of the hotel has been substantially altered and has exposed brick walls and grass matting ceilings.

Little of the original fabric or external appearance of the 19th century hotel is evident in the present day building.

Physical Conditions: Fair

Integrity: Major Alterations