Always wondered why this fountain was here. It's sort of an unexpected location for a fountain like this, tucked away in the back corner of Kapi'olani Park, in the center of a round-a-bout that joins the two directions of Kalakaua Ave, this awkward road layout creating a rather useless cheese-wedge shaped island of park, disconnected from the rest of the park, that I've never heard of anyone using...
The fountain itself is a sight to behold. It's kind of a shame it's stuck in a round-a-bout that does little to enhance its features. According to the Mayor's Office, it was gifted to the City by the Walter and Louise Dillingham Foundation, constructed in 1967, and designed by architect Albert Ely Ives (1). Ives appears to have also designed the Castle residence in Kailua that President Obama famously overwintered at and the Kaneohe Ranch Building (2).
Louise Dillingham, among her varied roles in the Honolulu community, was the president of the League of Women Voters and the Outdoor Circle. She was married to Walter Dillingham, the founder of Hawaiian Dredging, the man behind much of the shoreline modifications that occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries in Honolulu between Pearl Harbor and Diamond Head, and the son of Benjamin Dillingham, who owned sugar plantations, founded Oahu Railway & Land Co., and (I'm pretty sure but not positive) built Kapi'olani Park (which used to be swampy like the rest of Waikiki and when infilled was originally an equestrian track/polo field for Honolulu's elite). (3)
It is therefore fitting that a park feature be named after her, particularly here, however, people never talk about how this fountain was not the first one to be built in Kapi'olani Park. The Phoenix Fountain (see (4) for a photo of it) was a replica of a fountain in Japan gifted in 1919 by Hawaii's Japanese people in commemoration of the coronation of Emperor Yoshihito of Japan, and torn down after the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor (an interesting commentary on the sentiment that existed in Honolulu during WWII, cringeworthy at best set against the legacy of Hawaii's Japanese WWII veterans). In the late 1940s, the Parks Department commissioned a simple replacement fountain, and Ives' fountain design later built on the replacement (4, 5). This is what we see today.
(1) http://hiculturearts.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/1D237CCC-DF4C-49F7-AA13-831977667708
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Ely_Ives
(3) Purnell (1998), et al.
(4) https://www.hawaiianhistory.org/time-capsules/landmarks/fountains/
(5) http://totakeresponsibility.blogspot.com/2013/01/kapiolani-park-fountain.html