Even if you aren't staying at The Royal Hawaiian, it is worth visiting to view the property and learn about its history.
Matson Steamship Co. founder Captain William Matson's son-in-law William Roth (he was married to Matson's daughter Lurline, after which a ship was named) wanted to build a luxury hotel in Hawaii to capitalize on their plan to ferry wealthy tourists to Hawaii on their cruise ship "Malolo". Matson essentially partnered with Castle & Cooke and the Territorial Hotel Co., Ltd., the latter which owned the Moana Hotel and Seaside Bungalows at the time, to build it.
The hotel, designed by Warren and Wetmore (a New York-based firm with connections to the Vanderbilts that specialized in hotel design) without a site-visit, opened in 1927 after about a year and a half of construction complicated by costly subsidence issues. Princess Kawananakoa was one of the few Native Hawaiians amongst the 1200 guests (which included the Dillinghams and Governor Farrington) to attend the hotel's lavish opening ceremony.
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| Royal Hawaiian Hotel 1925 to 1926. Photo credit: Hawaii State Archives (Edgeworth). |
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| Royal Hawaiian Hotel the year it opened 1927. Photo credit: Hawaii State Archives (Edgeworth). |
The hotel sits on the former site of the Waikiki Seaside Hotel (1894) on land that had once been frequented by King Kamehameha I and Queen Ka'ahumanu. The siting was controversial amongst the native Hawaiian population.
In its early days, the hotel hosted many famous guests, including the Rockefellers, Fords, DuPonts, Clark Gable, Henry Kaiser (developer of Magic Island), Shirley Temple, George Burns, Amelia Earhart, Duke Kahanamoku, Bing Crosby, LBJ, FDR, Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, and even the Shah of Iran. The Royal Hawaiian Orchestra provided regular nightly entertainment.
Matson became the sole owner of the hotel in 1941, probably just before the U.S. entered WWII. During the war, the Navy leased the hotel as a "rest-and-relaxation center" for nearly four years. Barbed wire ran along the beach, the salon transformed into a dispensary, and submariners spent about ten days there at a time at twenty-five cents a day. Matson ended up spending millions of dollars restoring the hotel after the war ended. It reopened on the hotel's twentieth anniversary.
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| Royal Hawaiian Hotel ca. 1946. Photo credit: Hawaii State Archives. |
The Jet Age transformed travel, and Matson ended up selling the hotel to the Sheraton, which later sold it to Kyoya, who contracted with Sheraton to manage it, who's parent company Starwood was just bought by Marriott.
Other, perhaps post-war, guests of the hotel have included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner, Elizabeth Taylor, Red Skelton, Roger Ebert, Samuel L. Jackson, Eddie Vedder, The Backstreet Boys, KC and The Sunshine Band, and Jimmy Buffett. The hotel has also served as the backdrop for Hollywood films like "From Here to Eternity" (1953) and "Punch Drunk Love" (2002).*
Check out Stan Cohen's book "The Pink Palace" (1986) for a detailed history of the hotel including many photographs (the info above except for the asterisked paragraph and some of the presumably pre-WWII guest list is from this book). There are also photos and memorabilia documenting the hotel's history on-site.
From the days of Kamehameha the Great over two centuries ago, a regal atmosphere has existed here that has been restored today. It's not hard to imagine cloches and Chanel couture floating down the halls, a little harder to imagine Queen Ka'ahumanu's summer home, and quite difficult to envision a baseball diamond and blackouts.
Their gift shops are first-rate and their spa is beautiful.