Hilton Hawaiian Village
Encyclopedia
The Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort and Spa, formerly the Kaiser Hawaiian Village Hotel, has been a popular hotel in the Waikiki
Waikiki
Waikiki is a neighborhood of Honolulu, in the City and County of Honolulu, on the south shore of the island of Oahu, in Hawaii. Waikiki Beach is the shoreline fronting Waikīkī....

 area of the City and County of Honolulu
Honolulu County, Hawaii
The City and County of Honolulu is a consolidated city–county located in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The municipality and county includes both the urban district of Honolulu and the rest of the island of Oahu, as well as several minor outlying islands, including all of the Northwestern Hawaiian...

, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 since 1957. It is the largest hotel of the Hilton chain
Hilton Hotels & Resorts
Hilton Hotels & Resorts is an international chain of full-service hotels and resorts founded by Conrad Hilton and now owned by Hilton Worldwide. Hilton hotels are either owned by, managed by, or franchised to independent operators by Hilton Worldwide. Hilton Hotels became the first coast-to-coast...

, with 3,386 rooms and with 7 towers. It is also the 14th largest hotel in the world.

History

Located on the Hawaiian island of O'ahu
Oahu
Oahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...

, it was built on the former village of Kalia, which was the childhood home of Duke Kahanamoku
Duke Kahanamoku
Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku was a Hawaiian swimmer, actor, lawman, early beach volleyball player and businessman credited with spreading the sport of surfing. He was a five-time Olympic medalist in swimming.-Early years:The name "Duke" is not a title, but a given name...

. It consisted of a private estate with an owners' residence, tenant houses and a salt flat. The portion of the estate nearest the ocean beach was developed around 1900 as a small hotel named the Old Waikiki, then redeveloped in 1928 as the Niumalu Hotel.

The Village was conceived, constructed and first administered by Henry J. Kaiser
Henry J. Kaiser
Henry John Kaiser was an American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. He established the Kaiser Shipyard which built Liberty ships during World War II, after which he formed Kaiser Aluminum and Kaiser Steel. Kaiser organized Kaiser Permanente health care...

, the industrialist who built the Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President...

 and Grand Coulee Dam
Grand Coulee Dam
Grand Coulee Dam is a gravity dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington built to produce hydroelectric power and provide irrigation. It was constructed between 1933 and 1942, originally with two power plants. A third power station was completed in 1974 to increase its energy...

 and founded the Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente is an integrated managed care consortium, based in Oakland, California, United States, founded in 1945 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and physician Sidney Garfield...

 health system. Kaiser bought the Kalia estate of 16 acres (6.5 ha) and combined it to construct the Hawaiian Village, converting the flat to a lagoon.

Today, the Hawaiian Village Hotel sits on over 22 acres (8.9 ha) of beachfront property, near the Ala Moana Center
Ala Moana Center
Ala Moana Center in Honolulu is the largest shopping mall in Hawaii, the fifteenth largest shopping mall in the United States, and the largest open-air shopping center in the world....

. It features the largest swimming pool in Waikiki, over twenty-two restaurants, exotic wildlife, and botanical gardens, Duke's Lagoon
Duke Paoa Kahanamoku Lagoon
Duke Paoa Kahanamoku Lagoon is a small, man-made wading pool in the Waikiki neighborhood of Honolulu, on the south shore of the island of Oahu near the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor and Fort DeRussy Military Reservation. The Hilton Hawaiian Village is adjacent to the lagoon.-History:The lagoon was...

 and a branch of the Bishop Museum
Bishop Museum
The Bishop Museum , is a museum of history and science in the historic Kalihi district of Honolulu on the Hawaiian island of O'ahu...

.

Village Plan

In building the Hawaiian Village Hotel, Kaiser developed the "village plan" for his resort. In the village plan, various sections of the development were designed in specific types of motifs indicative of the culture of the hotel's surroundings. The various villages in the present-day Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort and Spa surround centerpiece towers: Diamond Head Tower, Ali'i Tower, Tapa Tower, Rainbow Tower, Lagoon Tower, Kalia Tower and Grand Waikikian. The newest tower is the Grand Waikikian, which was opened to the public December 28, 2008.

Kaiser's village plan is now used in various layouts of hotels and resorts throughout the world.

Wildlife

The Village Hotel is home to a group of South African black-footed penguins
African Penguin
The African Penguin , also known as the Black-footed Penguin is a species of penguin, confined to southern African waters. It is known as Brilpikkewyn in Afrikaans, Inguza or Unombombiya in Xhosa, Manchot Du Cap in French and Pingüino Del Cabo in Spanish...

 that live in an outdoor habitat surrounded by greenery and a small pond filled with several types of turtles (box
Box turtle
The box turtle , or box tortoise is a genus of turtle native to North America . The 12 taxa which are distinguished in the genus are distributed over four species. It is largely characterized by having a domed shell, which is hinged at the bottom, allowing the animal to close its shell tightly to...

 and soft-shelled). Other animals that live on the grounds include several types of ducks, lesser flamingos
Lesser Flamingo
The Lesser Flamingo is a species in the flamingo family of birds that resides in Africa and in southern Asia...

, sacred ibis
Sacred Ibis
The African Sacred Ibis is a species of ibis.-Description:An adult individual is 68 cm long with all-white body plumage apart from dark plumes on the rump. The bald head and neck, thick curved bill and legs are black. The white wings show a black rear border in flight...

, black-crowned night herons
Black-crowned Night Heron
The Black-crowned Night Heron commonly abbreviated to just Night Heron in Eurasia, is a medium-sized heron found throughout a large part of the world, except in the coldest regions and Australasia .-Description:Adults are...

, koi fish, chameleons, macaws, and parakeets.

The Geodesic Dome

The Village was the site one of the earlier geodesic domes constructed in the United States.

Wanting an auditorium at the Honolulu village, Henry Kaiser acquired the license to produce geodesic dome
Geodesic dome
A geodesic dome is a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure or lattice shell based on a network of great circles on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the structure. When...

s following the design work of Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....

. An aluminium-skinned dome with a 145 ft (44.2 m)-wide span was manufactured at the company's plant in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

and shipped to Hawaii. When Kaiser understood that the materials had arrived in Hawaii, he flew from San Francisco to follow the construction — only to discover the building was already complete, having been constructed in only 22 hours.

Resources

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