“In the latter post-contact period (ca. post 1850), the area [along Waikiki Beach] has been used for private residences: in the early portion of this period it was the domain of the royal family and the high ali‘i.”
“Foreign born businessmen and the children of missionaries began to acquire property along the beach in the late nineteenth century. They built large beach houses, which were used on weekends and holidays. The Young, Wilder, and Macfarlane families had house lots within and adjacent to the project area by 1897.”
Alexander Young was born in Blackburn, Scotland, December 14, 1833, the son of Robert and Agnes Young. His father was a contractor. When young, he apprenticed in a mechanical engineering and machinist department.
One of his first jobs included sailing around the Horn in 1860 to Vancouver Island with a shipload of machinery and a contract to build and operate a large sawmill at Alberni.
He left Vancouver Island for the distant “Sandwich Islands,” arriving in Honolulu February 5, 1865; he then formed a partnership with William Lidgate to operate a foundry and machine shop at Hilo, Hawaiʻi, continuing in this business for four years.
Moving to Honolulu, Young bought the interest of Thomas Hughes in the Honolulu Iron Works and continued in this business for 32 years. On his retirement from the iron works he invested in sugar plantation enterprises. He became president of the Waiakea Mill Co.
During the monarchy he served in the House of Nobles, 1889, was a member of the advisory council under the provisional Government and was a Minister of the Interior in President Dole’s cabinet.
With the new century he started a new career, when in 1900 he started construction of the Alexander Young Hotel, fronting Bishop Street and extending the full block between King and Hotel streets in downtown Honolulu. The 192-room building was completed in 1903.
In 1905, Young acquired the Moana Hotel and later the Royal Hawaiian Hotel (the ‘old’ Royal Hawaiian in downtown Honolulu that was later (1917) purchased for the Army and Navy YMCA.)
The Honolulu businessman whose downtown hotel that bore his name helped him became known as the father of the hotel industry in Hawaiʻi.
“Even before the Waikīkī coast became a tourist attraction, rich haole businessmen built their own beach houses along the shore. West of the Seaside were three houses, according to the recollections of Elizabeth Kinau Wilder, who grew up in their Waikīkī home in the 1910s. She recalled:”
“‘A narrow driveway, which faced the length of our front yard, led to the Youngs. Mr. Young didn’t have enough room for his carriage to turn around, so S.G. [Samuel Gardner Wilder, Elizabeth’s grandfather] let him use some of his property as a friendly gesture, never dreaming that he would never get it back! And when the Macfarlanes’ house was found to be fifteen feet on our land, S.G gave it to him rather than have the house torn down!’”
A 1914 Fire Insurance map, shows to the west of the Seaside dining room (with a semicircular rotunda), the “Seaside Hotel Rooms” partially over the water, which is the old Hawaiian Annex. Adjacent to this is a series of bathhouses and then a large family residence (labeled with a “D” for dwelling).
“This house is identified in several historic photographs as the ‘Bertha Young’ house. Bertha was a playmate of Elizabeth Wilder, who remembers many pleasant days spent at the adjacent Seaside Hotel.”
“During the 1920s, the Waikīkī landscape would be transformed when the construction of the Ala Wai Drainage Canal, begun in 1921 and completed in 1928, resulted in the draining and filling in of the remaining ponds and irrigated fields of Waikīkī.”
“The muliwai or lagoonal backwater of ‘Āpuakēhau Stream that reached the sea between the present Royal Hawaiian and Moana Hotels was filled in between 1919 and 1927. The filling in of ‘Āpuakēhau Stream and the excavating of the Ala Wai canal were elements of a plan to urbanize Waikīkī and the surrounding districts:”
“‘The [Honolulu city] planning commission began by submitting street layout plans for a Waikīkī reclamation district. In January 1922 a Waikīkī improvement commission resubmitted these plans to the board of supervisors, which, in turn, approved them a year later.’”
“The Royal Hawaiian Hotel was formally opened on February 1, 1927 and with a maximum height of 150 feet was the tallest privately owned building in the Territory at that time.” (Cultural Surveys).
“At the Ewa end of the Royal was the Bertha Young property. Bertha Young was part of the family who started the Young Hotel. Bertha Young’s place fronted on the ocean right next to the Royal.” (Fred Hemmings Sr. OCC)
The Bertha Young home survived the demolition of the Seaside Hotel in the 1920s and the construction of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in 1927. (Cultural Surveys) “Miss Young attended Punahou School and was graduated from Oakland High School in California. … During World War II, Miss Young worked with the Red Cross.” (SB, June 12, 1963)
Bertha Young, “who refused to surrender to the concrete jungle of Waikiki,” (SB June 12, 1963) died June 11, 1963. “[S]he lived in the last privately owned beachfront home in Waikiki.” (SB, June 13, 1963)
She built the house in 1927, designed by Dickey & Wood, for $13,400. (SB, Nav 12, 1927) “She lived for more than 50 years on the property given to her by her mother, Ruth.” (SB, June 12, 1963)
The Bertha Young property was sold in 1963 for $600,000 to the Von Hamm-Young Company. (SB, Aug 20, 1963) Her sister was Bernie Von Hamm and brother-in-law was Conrad C Von Hamm.
On February 26, 1969, “a bulldozer jazzed up with the flower leis dug the first spade of earth … for the Sheraton-Waikiki in an era full of memories for many kamaainas.” (SB, Feb 27, 1969)
