Sheraton Princess Kaiulani preserves its royal heritage
Prabha Natarajan
Pacific Business News
World War II was over, airplanes were bringing in more tourists daily than the Matson liners, and there weren't enough beds in Waikiki.
The 1950s was the perfect backdrop for developers to invest in beachfront and off-the-beach high-rise hotel towers in Waikiki. The number of visitors to the state was increasing at a steady clip of 20 percent annually and the 2,000 hotel rooms, the count at the start of the decade, was hardly enough.
Many of the towers were built as no-frills hotels for airline passengers, in contrast to the high-end tourists sailing in on the luxury liners and staying at the Moana Surfrider or Royal Hawaiian.
Featuring colonial doors, lobby pillars and wide entryways, what is now the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani hotel, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, is one of several hotels from that era that still retain much of their original architecture and interior design.
The hotel was built by Matson Navigation Co. as a functional hotel facing the Moana Surfrider on the Hawaiian royal estate of Ainahau. Architectural firm Gardner A. Dailey F.A.I.A. designed a 296-room hotel that still retained some remnants of the two-story royal home's original garden, including peacocks and palm trees.
The $4.5-million hotel was officially opened on June 11, 1955, the same year as the Outrigger Reef on the Beach, Biltmore and Edgewater Hotel were built.
The Princess Kaiulani hotel was noted for its feel of openness. The huge front doors that spanned the length of the hotel were similar to old colonial-style homes. They were opened in the mornings to let the day in and closed up at night before bedtime. Today, the doors still stand facing Kalakaua Avenue and offer guests access to the pool.
Other changes were made to the original structure after Matson sold it to Japanese industrialist Kenji Osano, founder of Kyo-ya Corp., in 1959. Osano added 210 rooms over the next year and it was built up to its present size of 1,150 rooms with the addition of the 29-story Ainahau Tower in 1970.
What has lasted through the decades is the hotel's collection of historic photographs and mementos of the princess, whose name it bears.
The front lobby is home to a life-size portrait of Princess Kaiulani in an elegant, yellow morning dress, painted by Lloyd Sexton. It's flanked by two kahili, a feather staff that symbolizes Hawaiian royalty and lineage. Across from it is an enclave that narrates the life of the princess in pictures -- in the garden, trying on a kimono for fun, the sad, dignified woman she became -- all set in a backdrop of dusky rose wallpaper and subdued lighting.
An adjacent glass cupboard displays musical instruments, knick-knacks and weapons that were an integral part of the royal home. On the 11th floor, the Robert Louis Stevenson room provides a spectacular view of the ocean and celebrates the princess's special relationship with the poet, including a copy of a poem he wrote for her.
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