Moana Hotel
Encyclopedia
The Moana Hotel, also known as the First Lady of Waikīkī, is a famous historic hotel on the island of Oahu
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...

, located at 2365 Kalākaua Avenue in Honolulu
Honolulu, Hawaii
Honolulu is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii. Honolulu is the southernmost major U.S. city. Although the name "Honolulu" refers to the urban area on the southeastern shore of the island of Oahu, the city and county government are consolidated as the City and...

, 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...

. Built in the late 19th century as the first hotel in Waikiki, the Moana opened its doors to guests in 1901, becoming the first large hotel in Waikīkī
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....

. The Moana Hotel is regarded as the flagship in Hawaii tourism, and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

. In Hawaiian
Hawaiian language
The Hawaiian language is a Polynesian language that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language of the state of Hawaii...

, moana means "open sea" or "ocean."

Early years

The wealthy Honolulu landowner, Walter Chamberlain Peacock, in an effort to establish a fine resort in the previously neglected 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 Honolulu, incorporated the Moana Hotel Company in 1896. Working with a design by architect Oliver G. Traphagen
Oliver G. Traphagen
Oliver G. Traphagen was an American architect who designed many notable buildings in Duluth, Minnesota during the late 19th century and in the Territory of Hawaii during the early 20th century. Among his most famous landmarks are the Oliver G...

 and $150,000 in capital, The Lucas Brothers contractors completed the structure in 1901. Construction of The Moana marked the beginning of tourism in 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....

, becoming the first hotel amidst the bungalows and beach houses.

The Moana's architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

 was influenced by European styles popular at the time, with Ionic columns
Ionic order
The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...

 and intricate woodwork and plaster detailing throughout the building. The Moana was designed with a grand porte cochere on the street side and wide verandas on the ocean side. Some of the 75 guest rooms had telephones and bathrooms (unusual at the time), and the hotel featured a billiard room, saloon, main parlor, reception area, and library. Peacock installed the first electric-powered elevator
Elevator
An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...

 in the islands at the Moana, which is still in use today.

Design features of the original structure that survive to this day include extra-wide hallways (to accommodate steamer trunks), high ceilings, and cross-ventilation windows (to cool the rooms prior to air conditioning).

The Moana officially opened on March 11, 1901. Its first guests were a group of Shriners
Shriners
The Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, also commonly known as Shriners and abbreviated A.A.O.N.M.S., established in 1870, is an appendant body to Freemasonry, based in the United States...

, who paid $1.50 per night for their rooms. Peacock did not find success with his endeavor, and sold the hotel to Alexander Young, a prominent businessman with other hotel holdings. The Young estate operated the hotel until the Matson Navigation Company
Matson Navigation Company
The Matson Navigation Company, a subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin, is a private shipping company with roots extending into the late 19th century...

 bought the property in 1932 for $1.6 million.

Growth

Over the course of Matson's ownership of the Moana, it grew along with the popularity of Hawaiian tourism. Two floors were added in 1928 along with Italian Renaissance
Renaissance architecture
Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance...

-styled concrete wings on each side of the hotel, creating its H shape seen today.

The hotel's outward appearance was altered slightly over the years, including "updates" to such designs as Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 in the 30's and Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...

 in the 50's.

From 1935 to 1975, the Moana's courtyard hosted the Hawaii Calls
Hawaii Calls
Hawaii Calls was a radio program that ran from 1935 through 1975 that featured live Hawaiian music conducted by Harry Owens, the composer of "Sweet Leilani"...

live radio broadcast. Legend has it that listeners mistook the hiss of the radio transmission as the waves breaking on the beach. When learning of this, the host instructed the soundman to run down to the waterfront to actually record the sound, which became a staple of the show.

In 1952, Matson
Matson Navigation Company
The Matson Navigation Company, a subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin, is a private shipping company with roots extending into the late 19th century...

 built a new hotel adjacent to the Moana on the east side, called the Surfrider Hotel. They sold all of their 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....

 hotel properties to the Sheraton
Sheraton Hotels and Resorts
Sheraton Hotels and Resorts is Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide's largest and second oldest brand . Starwood's headquarters are in White Plains, New York.-Sheraton history:...

 Company in 1959. In 1969 Sheraton built a towering new hotel on the Moana's west side. They named it the Sheraton Surfrider Hotel and the previous Surfrider was turned into a wing of the Moana. Sheraton sold all of their Hawaiian hotels in 1974 to Japanese industrialist Kenji Osano and his Kyo-Ya Company, though Sheraton continued to manage them. In 1989, a $50 million restoration (designed by Hawaii architect Virginia D. Murison) restored the Moana to its 1901 appearance and incorporated the two adjacent buildings into one beachfront resort with a common lobby, renaming the entire property the Sheraton Moana Surfrider.

Today

The restoration has cemented the Moana as one of Waikiki's premier hotels. It includes 793 rooms, (46 suites), a freshwater swimming pool, three restaurants, beach bar and barpoolside snack bar.

The property has been recognized with the President's Historic Preservation Award, the National Preservation Honor Award, Hawaii Renaissance Award, and the Hotel Sales and Marketing Association International Golden Bell Award. The main historic section of the hotel, The Banyan Wing, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

.

In 2007, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, management company of the Moana, rebranded the hotel from a Sheraton Hotel to a Westin Hotel. The name of the hotel became "Moana Surfrider, A Westin Resort & Spa".

The hotel is the base of operations for about 24 White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 staffers who accompany Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

 to his Winter White House
Winter White House
A "Winter White House" is typically the name given to the regular winter vacation residence of the standing President of the United States aside from Camp David, the mountain-based military camp in Frederick County, Maryland, used as a country retreat and for high-alert protection of the President...

 at Plantation Estate
Plantation Estate
Plantation Estate is a single-story wood frame Pacific Ocean-front house at 55 Kailuana Place in Kailua, Honolulu County, Hawaii that Barack Obama rented to be used as a Winter White House during Christmas break vacations in 2008, 2009 and 2010....

 during Christmas visits.

The Banyan Tree

In the center of the Moana Surfrider's courtyard stands a large Banyan tree
Banyan
A banyan is a fig that starts its life as an epiphyte when its seeds germinate in the cracks and crevices on a host tree...

. The Indian Banyan tree was planted in 1904 by Jared Smith, Director of the Department of Agriculture Experiment Station. When planted the tree was nearly seven feet tall and about seven years old. It now stands 75 feet high and spans 150 feet across the courtyard.

In 1979 the historic tree was one of the first to be listed on Hawaii's Rare and Exceptional Tree List. It has also been selected by the Board of Trustees of America the Beautiful Fund as the site for a Hawaii Millennium Landmark Tree designation, which selects one historic tree in each state for protection in the new millennium.

Rich and famous

As soon as the Moana Hotel opened, a non-stop flood of tourists from the mainland United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 poured through the Moana's doors. Its most famous guest came in 1920. The Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...

, who would later become King Edward VIII
Edward VIII of the United Kingdom
Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India, from 20 January to 11 December 1936.Before his accession to the throne, Edward was Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay...

, gallivanted around the Moana Hotel property and reportedly fell in love with the private pier from which he frequently dove into the ocean.

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...

, the legendary Olympic
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

 swimmer and popularizer of the sport of surfing
Surfing
Surfing' is a surface water sport in which the surfer rides a surfboard on the crest and face of a wave which is carrying the surfer towards the shore...

, frequented the Moana Hotel restaurants and private beachfront. The Moana Hotel became a favorite stomping ground for Kahanamoku's famed group, dubbed the Waikīkī Beach Boys.

Murder Mystery

In 1905, the Moana Hotel was at the center of one of America's legendary mysteries. Jane Stanford
Jane Stanford
Jane Stanford was the co-founder of Stanford University with her husband, Leland Stanford, whom she wed in 1850. She was the daughter of a shopkeeper and lived on Washington Avenue in Albany, New York, before her marriage...

, co-founder of Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 and former wife of California Governor
Governor of California
The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...

 Leland Stanford
Leland Stanford
Amasa Leland Stanford was an American tycoon, industrialist, robber baron, politician and founder of Stanford University.-Early years:...

, died in a Moana Hotel room of poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....

ing.

An account of events says that on the evening of February 28 at the hotel, Stanford had asked for bicarbonate of soda to settle her stomach. Her personal secretary Bertha Berner prepared the solution, which Stanford drank. At 11:15 p.m., Stanford cried out for her servants and Moana Hotel staff to fetch a physician feeling that she had lost sensations. Robert W. P. Cutler, who wrote the book, The Mysterious Death of Jane Stanford, recounted what took place upon the arrival of Moana Hotel physician, Dr. Francis Howard Humphris:
As Humphris tried to administer a solution of bromine and chloral hydrate, Mrs. Stanford, now in anguish, exclaimed, "My jaws are stiff. This is a horrible death to die." Whereupon she was seized by a tetanic spasm that progressed relentlessly to a state of severe rigidity: her jaws clamped shut, her thighs opened widely, her feet twisted inwards, her fingers and thumbs clenched into tight fists, and her head drew back. Finally, her respiration ceased.


Stanford was dead from strychnine
Strychnine
Strychnine is a highly toxic , colorless crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine causes muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia or sheer exhaustion...

 poisoning. Who killed her, remains a mystery. Today, the room no longer exists; it was stripped for expansion of the lobby.

The Osano Empire

The hotel's owners, Japanese businessmen and brothers Kenji Osano and Masakuni Osano purchased the Moana Hotel from the Sheraton Corporation in 1974 for US$10.7 million. The market price for the property was undervalued and the Osano brothers made millions of dollars in profit.

At the same time, they purchased the rest of Sheraton's holdings in Hawaii—the Sheraton Surfrider Hotel, the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani Hotel, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel
Royal Hawaiian Hotel
Royal Hawaiian Hotel, also known as the Pink Palace of the Pacific, is a hotel located at 2259 Kalākaua Avenue in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. One of the first hotels established in Waikiki, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel is considered one of the flagship hotels in Hawaii tourism...

 and the newly opened Sheraton Waikīkī Hotel.

The Osano brothers formed Kyo-Ya Company Limited, a subsidiary of Kokusai Kogyo Company Limited, as the corporate entity charged with overseeing the hotel properties. The purchases put the Osano brothers on the Forbes 400
Forbes 400
The Forbes 400 or 400 Richest Americans is a list published by Forbes Magazine magazine of the wealthiest 400 Americans, ranked by net worth. The list is published annually in September, and 2010 marks the 29th issue. The 400 was started by Malcom Forbes in 1982 and treats those in the list like...

list of the World's wealthiest people in 1999.

After the death of the Osano brothers, Takamasa Osano inherited billions of dollars in properties. The Moana Hotel continues to be the flagship hotel in the Osano corporate empire and is the part-time residence of Eiko Osano, widow of Kenji Osano.

Sources

  • Stan Cohen. 1996. A Pictorial History of the Sheraton Moana Surfrider, Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, Inc.
  • Robert W. P. Cutler. 2003. The Mysterious Death of Jane Stanford, Stanford University Press.
  • Glen Grant. 1996. Waikīkī Yesteryear, Mutual Publishing Co.
  • Don Hibbard and David Franzen. 1995. The View from Diamond Head: Royal Residence to Urban Resort, Editions Ltd.
  • George S. Kanahele. 1996. Waikīkī, 100 BC to 1900 AD: An Untold Story, University of Hawaii Press.
  • Pukui, Mary K., Samuel H. Elbert, and Esther T. Mookini. 1976. Place Names of Hawaii, Revised & expanded edition. Univ. Press of Hawaii, Honolulu. 289 pp.

External links

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