Moana Hotel

May 15, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

At The End Of The Line

Repeatedly evidenced in the early years of rail across the continent, railroads looked to expand their passenger business by operating hotels at the ends of the lines.

Once a railroad was being built to a new location, the land speculators would prepare for cashing in on their investment. A hotel would typically be in place by the time the railroad service began.

Prospective buyers needed to have a place to stay, so they could become enamored of the scenery and have time to be enticed into buying a piece of property.

Likewise, an ocean liner, while it served as a moving hotel, needed to make sure people had places to stay where the cruise ships stopped.

Simply look at the early history of trains and ships, the pattern is apparent. Several in Hawai‘i followed this example in the planning of their transportation systems.

Here’s a summary of a few hotels and attractions associated with Hawaiʻi’s transportation providers:

OR&L – Haleiwa Hotel
Dillingham’s Haleiwa Hotel was conceived as part of a larger concept. O‘ahu Railway & Land Company was built with the primary purpose of transporting sugar from western Honolulu and the North Shore to Honolulu Harbor.

Dillingham hoped to capitalize on his investment (and expand upon the diversity of users on his trains) by encouraging passenger travel as well; his new hotel was a means to this end. It thrived.

Matson – Moana Hotel
The Moana officially opened on March 11, 1901. Its first guests were a group of Shriners, who paid $1.50 per night for their rooms. Matson Navigation Company bought the property in 1932; they needed land-based accommodations equally lavish to house their cruisers to Hawaiʻi.

Over the course of Matson’s ownership of the Moana, it grew along with the popularity of Hawaiian tourism. Two floors were added in 1928 along with Italian Renaissance-styled concrete wings on each side of the hotel, creating its H shape seen today.

In 1952, a new hotel was built adjacent to the Moana called the Surfrider Hotel (on the east side of the Moana.) In the late-1960s (after the new Sheraton Surfrider Hotel was built on the west side of the Moana,) the old Surfrider building was made into a wing of the Moana Hotel.)

Matson – Royal Hawaiian Hotel
With the success of the early efforts by Matson Navigation Company to provide steamer travel to America’s wealthiest families en route to Hawaiʻi, Captain William Matson proposed the development of a hotel in Honolulu for his passengers.

This was in hope of profiting from what Matson believed could be the most lucrative endeavor his company could enter into. The Royal Hawaiian (Pink Palace of the Pacific) opened its doors to guests on February 1, 1927 with a black tie gala attended by over 1,200 guests. The hotel quickly became an icon of Hawaiʻi’s glory days.

Matson – Princess Kaʻiulani
After the war, tourism to Hawaiʻi expanded in the mid-1950s. To capitalize on this increasing boom in travel and trade, Matson constructed its third hotel, the Princess Kaʻiulani in 1955. Formerly the site of the Moana cottages, the land was cleared in 1953 to make way for a new high-rise.

At the time, the hotel’s Princess Wing was the tallest building in Hawaiʻi (11 stories, 131 feet above the ground). It was the largest hotel built in Hawai‘i, since The Royal Hawaiian in 1927.

In 1959 (the year Hawai‘i entered statehood and jet airline travel was initiated to the State,) Matson sold all of its hotel properties, including the four year-old Princess Kaʻiulani Hotel, to the Sheraton hotel chain.

Hotels weren’t the only end-of-the-line attraction.

Honolulu Rapid Transit and Land Company – Waikīkī Aquarium
The Waikīkī Aquarium opened on March 19, 1904; it is the third oldest aquarium in the United States. Its adjacent neighbor on Waikīkī Beach is the Natatorium War Memorial.

Then known as the Honolulu Aquarium, it was established as a commercial venture by the Honolulu Rapid Transit and Land Company, who wished to “show the world the riches of Hawaiʻi’s reefs”.

It was also a practical objective of using the Aquarium as a means of enticing passengers to ride to the end of the new trolley line in Kapi‘olani Park, where the Aquarium was located. (The trolley terminus was across Kalākaua Avenue from the Aquarium, near the current tennis courts.)

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OR&L Train thunders past Mokuleia Field, Oahu,-(hawaii-gov-hawaiiaviation)-c1942-1943-400

1930s Matson cruise ship departs Honolulu for San Francisco

Matson-Royal_Hawaiian-Princess_Kaiulani-Moana-Surfride-Hotels_Ad-(eBay)-1958

Archibald Cleghornʻs 50 years of membership in the British Club, taking place at Haleiwa Hotel

circa 1910, from The Advertiser's archives shows the old Hale'iwa Hotel

Moana Hotel-Apuakehau Stream-(Kanahele)-1915

BVD 14-1-31-32 royal hawaiian hotel aerial August.22_750-150w-Kamehameha Schools Archives

BVD-14-1-31-41-Bertha Young residence and Royal Hawaiian hotel_150w-KamehamehaSchoolsArchives

Princess_Kaiulani_Hotel-Moana-Surfrider-1958

June 14, 2019 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Waikīkī was once a vast marshland whose boundaries encompassed more than 2,000-acres (as compared to its present 500-acres we call Waikīkī, today).

In the late-1890s, with additional steamship lines to Honolulu, the visitor arrivals to Oʻahu were increasing. In 1896, Walter Chamberlain Peacock, a wealthy Waikīkī homeowner at the time, proposed to build Waikīkī’s first major resort to provide a solution to the area’s main drawback – the lack of suitable accommodations on the beach.

Often called the “First Lady of Waikīkī,” the Moana Hotel has been a Hawaiʻi icon since its opening opened on March 11, 1901.

The original wooden center structure of the Moana Hotel is the oldest existing hotel in Waikīkī. As such, it deserves recognition as a landmark in Hawaii’s tourist industry.

Designed in the old colonial style architecture of the period, it boasted 75 rooms and was the costliest, most elaborate and modern hotel building in the Hawaiian Islands at the time.

Each room on the three upper floors had a bathroom and a telephone – innovations for any hotel of the times. The hotel also had its own ice plant and electric generators. The first floor had a billiard parlor, saloon, main parlor, library, office, and reception area.

The Moana was one of the earliest “high-rise” buildings in Hawaii and was the costliest hotel in the islands. In spite of numerous renovations and changes, it has retained its tropical openness and is a welcome change from the more modern high-rises that surround it.

The original four story wood structure, designed by OG Traphagen, a well known Honolulu architect, features an elaborately designed lobby which extends to open lanais and is open to the Banyan Court and the sea.

By 1918, Hawaii had 8,000 visitors annually and by the 1920s Matson Navigation Company ships were bringing an increasing number of wealthy visitors.

This prompted a massive addition to the hotel. In 1918, two floors were added along with concrete wings on each side, doubling the size of the hotel.

In the 1920s, the Waikīkī landscape underwent a dramatic re-development when the wetlands were drained with the construction of the Ala Wai Canal. The reclaimed lands were subdivided into 5,000-square foot lots.

Matson Navigation Company bought the Moana in 1932; it paired with Matson’s other Waikīkī property, the Royal Hawaiian.

From 1935 until 1975, the Moana Hotel courtyard was home to the “Hawaii Calls” worldwide radio show, with its trademark sound of waves breaking in the distance.

The 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor and Second World War interrupted the flow of visitors to Waikīkī and the region becomes a rest and recreation area for soldiers and sailors coming and going to the war in the Pacific.

After the war, tourism thrived in the late-1940s and 50s, with the introduction of regularly scheduled airline service from the West Coast.

1959 brought two significant actions that shaped the present day make-up of Hawai‘i, (1) Statehood and (2) jet-liner service between the mainland US and Honolulu (Pan American Airways Boeing 707.) (That year, the Moana was sold to the Sheraton hotel chain.)

These two events helped guide and expand the fledgling visitor industry in the state into the number one industry that it is today. Tourism exploded. Steadily during the 1960s, 70s and 80s the millions of tourists added up, as did the new visitor accommodations in Waikīkī.

The Moana remains a constant reminder of the old Waikīkī.

In the center of the Moana’s courtyard stands a large Banyan tree. The Indian Banyan tree was planted in 1904 by Jared Smith, Director of the Department of Agriculture Experiment Station (about 7-feet at planting, it is now over 75-feet in height.)

In 1979 the historic tree was one of the first to be listed on Hawaii’s Rare and Exceptional Tree List. It has also been selected by the Board of Trustees of America the Beautiful Fund as the site for a Hawaii Millennium Landmark Tree designation, which selects one historic tree in each state for protection in the new millennium.

In 1905, the Moana Hotel was at the center of one of America’s legendary mysteries. Jane Stanford, co-founder of Stanford University and former wife of California Governor Leland Stanford, died in a Moana Hotel room of poisoning.

After several renovations and additions, the hotel now accommodates 794 guest rooms, two restaurants, spa and a bunch of other hotel amenities.

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March 14, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Timeline Tuesday … 1900s

Today’s ‘Timeline Tuesday’ takes us through the 1900s – Young Brothers formed, Moana Hotel opens, Dole organizes Hawaiian Pineapple Company and UH starts. We look at what was happening in Hawai‘i during this time period and what else was happening around the rest of the world.

A Comparative Timeline illustrates the events with images and short phrases. This helps us to get a better context on what was happening in Hawai‘i versus the rest of the world. I prepared these a few years ago for a planning project. (Ultimately, they never got used for the project, but I thought they might be on interest to others.)

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March 11, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Walter Chamberlain Peacock

Walter Chamberlain (WC) Peacock was born in in 1858 in Lancaster, England. After a short stay in New Zealand, he arrived in the Islands in about 1881. (Sullivan)

Shortly after arriving, Peacock started a liquor business with George Freeth (Freeth’s son, George Douglas Freeth Jr, is noted as the father of California surfing.) (Whitcomb) By 1890 Freeth had departed and the firm became known as WC Peacock & Co.

In addition to selling liquor at wholesale, Peacock also ran a string of saloons in Honolulu – Pacific, Cosmopolitan and Royal. A notable remnant of Peacock’s enterprises is the Royal Saloon at the corner of Merchant and Nuʻuanu in downtown Honolulu. (Sullivan)

Since 1873, the property had been used as a hotel and saloon (apparently, the initial retail spirit license for it was issued to William Lowthian Green – Freeth’s father-in-law.) In 1884 the saloon was sold, then sold again between that year and 1886, when Peacock owned it. In its early years, the saloon was particularly popular with sailors, the Sailors’ Home being next door.

Peacock’s saloon was demolished for the widening of Merchant Street which took place in 1889. He temporarily moved his establishment to the corner of King and Nuʻuanu Streets. After the street was widened, Peacock constructed a new saloon in 1890, on the site of his earlier structure. (HABS)

Back in the reign of King Kalākaua, a building on the site was called the Hawaiian Steakhouse and Saloon, a place for businessmen, ships’ officers and royalty to gather for food, libations and cigars. (George) Another name for it was Royal Hotel. (It’s now home to Murphy’s.)

For a while, Peacock and his brother, Corbert Alfred Peacock, were involved in a farm implements business (disc ploughs) in Australia as WC Peacock and Bro. It was relatively short-lived (about 1899-1901.) Corbet ran the business in Australia for about 3 years and then returned to Hawaiʻi. (ozwrenches)

In the 1890s, Walter joined other Honolulu elite who constructed mansions along the Waikīkī shoreline, including James Campbell, Frank Hustace and William Irwin. The wealthy discovered the ultimate destination of Waikīkī.

Peacock also built his own a pier (Peacock Pier.) Nearby was an early commercial venture, the Long Branch Baths (offering sea bathing in Waikīkī’s waters.) Down the way, Liliʻuokalani also had her own pier.

Then, Peacock proposed another Hawaiʻi lasting legacy. In the late-1890s, with additional steamship lines to Honolulu, the visitor arrivals to Oʻahu were increasing. In 1896, Peacock proposed to build Waikīkī’s first major resort to provide a solution to the area’s main drawback – the lack of suitable accommodations on the beach.

The initial idea was to construct a number of airy cottages on the Peacock premises, where the surf is in many respects better than at any other point on the beach. The outlook, however, rapidly became so much improved that even more elaborate plans than had ever been thought of were finally adopted. (Thrum)

Peacock created a new company, Moana Hotel Company Ltd, and engaged the well-known architect Oliver G Trephagen to design the hotel. He arranged for his own house to be moved to accommodate the large building. (Sullivan)

The main hotel had 75-five rooms. This does not include the entire lower floor and the large Peacock cottage on the grounds. The lower, or first, floor of the hotel will be given over to a billiard parlor, saloon, office, library, reception parlor, etc.

It was planned to make a club house of the Peacock cottage until such time as it may be required for regular hotel purposes. The rooms on the second, third and fourth floors are large and are so joined together that they may be fitted in any number of manner for family or excursion parties.

Above the hotel proper is a central tower in which is a fifth floor, and above that is a covered roof garden. From the latter a perfect view was to be had of the sea and most of the city of Honolulu.

This roof garden is large enough for receptions and dancing parties. The hotel has its own electric plant, which will supply power and light. It will run the up-to-date elevator, furnish light throughout the buildings and grounds, give power to the laundry and speed the fans in the dining room. (Thrum)

The Moana Hotel officially opened on March 11, 1901. Designed in the old colonial style architecture of the period, it was the costliest, most elaborate and modern hotel building in the Hawaiian Islands at the time.

Each room on the three upper floors had a bathroom and a telephone – innovations for any hotel of the times. The hotel also had its own ice plant and electric generators.

In 1905, Peacock sold the hotel to Alexander Young, a prominent Honolulu businessman with other island hotel interests. After Young’s death in 1910, his estate continued to operate the hotel.

In 1918, five-story concrete additions were added to the original wooden structure changing the floor plan from a simple rectangle to the present H-shaped plan that encloses the Banyan Court on three sides.

The original 240-foot-long timber Peacock Pier (subsequently renamed Moana Pier) was taken down in 1931, due to its deterioration. (Wiegel)

In 1909, Peacock died at the age of 51. He was buried in the Oʻahu Cemetery in a section known as the “Peacock Plot.” His mother, Margaret, age 82, three years later would join him in the grave. Mother and son are memorialized on a joint headstone. (Sullivan)

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Waikiki-Coastal_Area-Apuakeahu_Stream-to-Bridge-Reg1841-(1897)-Google Earth-noting Peacock

Waikiki-Coastal_Area-Apuakeahu_Stream-to-Bridge-Reg1841-(1897)-portion-noting Peacock

WC Peacock-Whiskey Bottle

WC Peacock-Whiskey Glass

Royal Saloon (NPS)

Royal Saloon-(NPS)

Royal Saloon Building, 1890

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W C Peacock & Bro Plough Hammer Spanner. © Ozwrenches

Moana_Hotel-HSA-1908

Moana_Hotel-Peacock_Cottage-Cleghorn_Beach_House-Hustace_Villa-postcard-(CulturalSurveys)-ca_1910

Moana Hotel-Apuakehau Stream-(Kanahele)-1915

Moana Sign

Moana_Hotel-Tram Line

Moana_Hotel-Early-Layout-(Sanborn_Fire_Maps)-1914

Peacock Advertisement

WC_Peacock_Thanksgiving_Ad-Evening_Bulletin-Nov_20,_1909

Peacock-headstone

February 24, 2013 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Royal Hawaiian Hotel – Waikīkī

The first Royal Hawaiian Hotel was not in Waikīkī. It was in downtown Honolulu where the “One Capitol District” building now stands. By the 1900s, the Royal Hawaiian lost its guests to the newer Alexander Young hotel a few blocks away.

The downtown Royal Hawaiian was converted to a YMCA building in 1917. The building was demolished in 1926, and a new YMCA in a similar style was built in its place.

For centuries, Helumoa in Waikīkī was the home to Hawaiʻi’s royalty. Portions of this area would eventually become the home to the new Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

In the 1890s, the property was leased as a seaside annex to the downtown Royal Hawaiian Hotel located at Richards and Hotel streets.

In 1907, the Seaside Hotel opened on the property, and was later acquired by Alexander Young’s Territorial Hotel Company, which operated the Alexander Young hotel in downtown Honolulu.

In 1924, the Seaside Hotel’s lease of the land at Helumoa was soon to expire and the land’s owners (Bishop Estate) put out a request for proposals to build a hotel.

This was the time before flight; Matson Navigation Co. had luxury ocean liners bringing wealthy tourists to Hawaii – but, they needed a hotel equally lavish to accommodate their passengers at Waikīkī (at that time, the 650 passengers arriving in Honolulu every two weeks were typically staying at Hawaiʻi’s two largest hotels, the Alexander Hotel and the Moana.)

The availability of the Waikīkī land began putting wheels into motion. A new hotel was planned and conceived as a luxurious resort for Matson passengers, the brainchild of Ed Tenney (who headed the “big five” firm of Castle and Cooke and Matson Navigation) and Matson manager William Roth (son-in-law to William Matson founder of Matson Navigation.)

Castle & Cooke, Matson Navigation and the Territorial Hotel Company successfully proposed a plan to build a luxury hotel, The Royal Hawaiian, with 400 rooms on the 15-acre parcel of Waikiki beach to be leased from Bishop Estate.

The ground-breaking ceremony took place on July 26, 1925. However, the official building permits were delayed while city officials changed the building code to allow increased building heights. After $4 million and 18 months, the resort was completed.

On February 1, 1927, the Royal Hawaiian (nicknamed The Pink Palace) was officially opened with the gala event of the decade. Over 1200 guest were invited for the celebration that started at 6:30 pm and lasted until 2 am.

Duke Kahanamoku, the legendary Olympic swimmer and surfer, frequented the Royal Hawaiian Hotel restaurants and private beachfront. The Royal Hawaiian Hotel became a favorite stomping ground for Kahanamoku’s famed group, dubbed the “Waikiki Beach Boys”.

Over the following decades, the Royal Hawaiian was THE place to stay and the Pink Palace hosted world celebrities, financiers, heads of state and the elite from around the world.

World War II, with its associated martial law and blackout measures, meant significant changes at the Royal Hawaiian. In January of 1942, the U.S. Navy signed a lease with the Royal Hawaiian to use the facilities as a rest and relaxation center for officers and enlisted personnel serving in the Pacific.

During the war, over 200,000 men stayed at the Royal Hawaiian. Each day as many as 5,500 service-related visitors (most of who were not staying at the hotel) passed through the front gates to enjoy the beach or social activities.

At the conclusion of World War II, the hotel was given a makeover to restore her to the level of luxury her guests would expect.

ITT Sheraton purchased The Royal Hawaiian from Matson in June 1959. The Royal Tower Wing was added to the existing structure in 1969. The resort was sold in 1974 to Kyo-ya Company, Ltd., with Starwood Hotels & Resorts operating it under a long-term management contract.

In 2008, the Royal Hawaiian again underwent significant renovation (to the tune of $85-million) and held its official grand reopening on March 7, 2009. The Tower section was renovated yet again in November 2010 and reopened as The Royal Beach Tower with upgraded rooms.

Why the color pink? Bob Krauss once reported that the Royal Hawaiian’s pink color is due to the typically pink-painted homes in Lisbon, Portugal.

Friends of William Roth (Kimo and Sarah Wilder) had visited Lisbon and upon returning repainted their home pink with blue-green shutters. Roth commented, “I love what you’ve done to your house. Can I paint my hotel the same color?”

The image shows the Royal Hawaiian; in addition, I have included other old and new images of the hotel in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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