Jacobson Buys Dederang Hotel Sight Unseen — Oops I Bought A Pub
Shane Jacobson bought the historic Dederang Hotel sight unseen, turning oops i bought a pub into a real purchase in country Victoria. He and Dean Murphy are now the owners, with the deal set to become the basis of a new Seven series.
Jacobson’s Sight-Unseen Deal
“I actually purchased it sight unseen,” Jacobson said, after Murphy’s email set the idea in motion. He said Murphy wrote, “By the way, have you ever thought about buying a pub?” and he rang back immediately asking, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Murphy grew up in Dederang and had recently moved back to the area. When he found out the pub was for sale, he wanted to do everything in his power to try to save the beloved Dederang Hotel, which sits 50 km from Falls Creek and 325 km from Melbourne.
Dean Murphy’s Push
“Because — and I know Dean doesn’t mind people knowing this about him — but he doesn’t drink,” Jacobson said. “Like — he’s never had a drink in his life!” He also said Murphy’s line made one point impossible to miss: “It’s not just a pub — it’s the Dedarang Hotel.”
Jacobson said the decision came with family backing. “My wife, she comes from Irish heritage and her grandmother was born and raised in a pub, so there’s a bit of a romantic notion of it for my wife,” he said. “She was keener than me from the start — if she’d said no, I would have said no, but she said, ‘Oh, that looks beautiful, I love it.’”
Seven’s Ooops! I Bought A Pub
Over twenty years after Jacobson and Murphy began working together, the pair were en route with purchase papers in hand and a film crew trailing behind not long after the conversation. That sequence turned the transaction into a television project rather than a private buy, with Seven set to capture the process in Ooops! I Bought A Pub.
The friction in this story is built into the deal itself: one of the buyers does not drink, the pub was purchased without a site visit, and the property is a historic rural venue that Murphy wanted to save. For viewers, the purchase now matters less as a celebrity novelty than as an operating test for a country pub that had to change hands before the cameras rolled.
