Jim Kelly
Pacific Business News
The Waikikian, an empty, tattered remnant of the pre-jet, pre-condo, pre-high-rise days of Waikiki, will soon be demolished to make room for a 38-story time-share tower.
Wedged between the Ilikai and the Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa, a piece of the Waikikian hotel is the last structure remaining in Waikiki from the brief postwar era when angular, low-slung modern designs were paired with dark native woods, glass and lava rock to create a new kind of tropical architecture.
The Waikikian closed in 1996 and most of it was demolished, including its beloved open-air bar, the Tahitian Lanai, and the lobby with its soaring parabolic roof.
The Tiki Tower, built in 1959 as an addition to the hotel, is empty but remains standing, a six-story relic from the days of "Hawaiian Eye," Arthur Lyman and Pall Malls.
This battered portal into 1950s tropical design will soon disappear. Norman Hong, vice chairman of Group 70 International Inc., which is designing the new tower for Hilton, said the Tiki Tower is expected to be demolished in the next two to three months, with construction on the new building scheduled for early 2006.
As with most commercial buildings, few appreciated the Waikikian and similar designs, known broadly today as "tiki-style," until it was too late. The Waikikian, which opened in 1956, joined dozens of other postwar Hawaii landmarks that were bulldozed to make room for structures that were more profitable but less stylish.
Even as Henry Kaiser was laying plans for the mammoth Hawaiian Village complex next door, hotelier Fred Dailey enlisted George "Pete" Wimberly to design the Waikikian, a small, mid-priced hotel surrounded by tropical gardens.
Wimberly, who died in 1996 at age 80, was the casual genius behind some of Hawaii's most famous tropical architecture of the 1950s and 1960s. His firm,Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo, is now one of the world's leading resort architecture firms.
Wimberly's colleague, Donald Goo, senior vice president of the firm, said Wimberly would not be troubled by the construction of a high-rise on the Waikikian site.
"Pete wouldn't have objected to it," Goo said. "He might have been a bit nostalgic, but he was a pretty modern guy. He might say they don't do it as good today."
The Waikikian was essentially a motel disguised as a tropical resort. But Wimberly's design ensured that the Waikikian was more than a Polynesian Howard Johnson's.
The triangular tapa pattern on the balcony railings is still the hotel's most distinctive feature. A two-story carving by local sculptor Edward Brownlee once rose tall above the roofline on the Ala Moana side of the building and a shield in the shape of an elongated sunburst remains.
An ABC Store and several other shops occupy what was once the walkway between the Tiki Tower and the lobby.
Where the lobby stood is a collection of hotel detritus. But the bottom half of the spiral staircase that was the most prominent feature of the lobby remains anchored to the concrete.
A few tikis also remain, including the stump of one that has stood guard near the entrance for nearly 50 years. Near the ABC Store is what's left of a fountain.
Group 70's Hong is aware of the nostalgia associated with the Waikikian and said it's possible some of its elements, such as the tikis, may find a home on the Hilton grounds.
He said the firm is aiming for a design that stands apart from the other Hilton towers "in the tradition of a grand Hawaiian hotel."
"Stylistically, it's not going to be like the old Waikikian, but scale-wise it's going to be very appropriate, very village-like," he said. "We're not going to do a throwback. We're doing a contemporary Hawaiian design.
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