Curtis Perry Ward was born in Kentucky and arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1853; he married Victoria Robinson (daughter of English shipbuilder, James Robinson) in 1865. They lived in several houses, each named with a southern reference, ‘Dixie,’ Sunny South’ and ‘Old Plantation.’

‘Dixie’ was near Honolulu Harbor on property presently occupied by the Davies Pacific Center; ‘Sunny South’ was in the country on Waikiki Road (Kalākaua Avenue,) a home designed in Southern Colonial style (between Washington Intermediate and Makiki Stream – across from what was later the Cinerama Theater), with a “great gate over which he carved the home’s name – ‘Sunny South;” ‘Old Plantation’ was fashioned directly after his home in Lexington (Kentucky) – “The site of ‘Old Plantation’ once was known as ‘Little Kentucky.’” It’s where what we called Honolulu International Center, now Blaisdell Center.