Halekulani (hotel)

Halekulani is a historic oceanfront luxury hotel located on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii, established in 1917. The hotel contains 453 rooms in five buildings on 5 acres (20,000 m2) of property. Halekulani is a Hawaiian word meaning "House Befitting Heaven".

Halekulani
View of the hotel from the street.
General information
Location2199 Kalia Road
Waikiki, Honolulu, Hawai'i
Opening1917
ManagementHalekulani Corporation[1]
Design and construction
Architect(s)C.W. Dickey, Killingsworth and Associates[2]
Other information
Number of rooms453[3]
Number of suites42[3]
Number of restaurants3
ParkingValet
Website
http://www.halekulani.com

It has three restaurants on the property – House Without a Key, Orchids, and La Mer. It is also the home of SpaHalekulani and the Lewers Lounge.

The hotel is a member of both The Leading Hotels of the World[4] and Imperial Hotel, Ltd.,[5] marketing and trade associations geared toward luxury hotels.

Halekulani has received numerous awards, including a World's Best 2005 award from Travel & Leisure magazine.[6] It received Four Stars from Mobil Travel Guide and a AAA Four Diamonds rating.[7]

The hotel is currently owned and operated by the Japanese company Mitsui Fudosan.[8] Mitsui Fudosan brought luxury hospitality executive Peter Shaindlin to Hawaii as CEO of the Halekulani Corporation, overseeing the hotel.[9] The hotel's boutique sister property, Waikiki Parc, is located across the street.[10]

History

In 1883, businessman Robert Lewers built a two-story house on the site of the modern hotel's main building. In 1907, Lewers leased the property to journalist Edward Irwin, who converted it to a hotel called the Hau Tree. It was purchased in 1917 by Juliet and Clifford Kimball,[1] who established it as Halekulani. The Kimballs enlarged the resort over the years, purchasing a neighboring plot of land and adding additional buildings. After their deaths, their heirs sold the hotel to the Norton Clapp family in 1962 for $4.2 million. In 1978, the Clapps announced their intention to replace the aging collection of structures with a modern luxury hotel. On January 15, 1981 the hotel was purchased by Mitsui Fudosan USA and incorporated as the Halekulani Corporation, a U.S. based company.[11] The current 453-room hotel structure opened in 1984.

The original Halekulani was a plain residential hotel, more an informal grouping of simple bungalows on simple landscaping, offering inexpensive, unpretentious accommodations, with simple food. Later it grew into a more conventional hotel with numerous buildings containing several rooms each and two well known restaurants; one being the House Without a Key made famous by the Earl Derr Biggers novel of the same name. The other was the Coral Tree Lanai, known for its gracious seaside service. The low density on the extensive grounds made it an attractive investment for rebuilding and rebirth.[2]

Notable features

References
  1. "Halekulani Waikiki Legacy".
  2. "Memories of our house befitting heaven: a Halekulani history" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-04-13.
  3. "Resort Map".
  4. "Halekulani". Leading Hotels of the World. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
  5. "Halekulani: A House Befitting Heaven". Imperial Hotel. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
  6. "Sydney ranked world's best city". CNN. 12 July 2005. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
  7. "Halekulani scores high on national spa rating". The Business Journals. 19 March 2004. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
  8. Heckathorn, John (13 May 2009). "Waikiki's Halekulani hotel celebrates its 25th anniversary". Hawai'i Magazine. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
  9. "Leaders in Luxury: Peter Shaindlin". Elite Traveler. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
  10. "Waikiki Parc Hotel to close in 2016 for renovation, reduce room count". Pacific Business News. American City Business Journals. 18 March 2014. Retrieved 15 January 2015.
  11. "Memories of Our House Befitting Heaven" (PDF). Halekulani Corporation. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
  12. "Beach and Pool". Halekulani. Retrieved 30 October 2017.

21.277878°N 157.831931°W / 21.277878; -157.831931

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