Halekulani (var. Halekūlani) is an oceanfront luxury hotel located on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii. Built in 1984, it contains 453 rooms in five buildings on 5 acres (20,000 m2) of property.
| Halekulani | |
|---|---|
 Part of the hotel campus (foreground) from Kalia Road | |
 | |
| Alternative names | Halekūlani |
| General information | |
| Location | 2199 Kalia Road Waikiki, Honolulu, Hawai'i |
| Opening | 1984 |
| Management | Halekulani Corporation[2] |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect(s) | Killingsworth and Associates[1] |
| Other information | |
| Number of rooms | 453[3] |
| Number of suites | 42[3] |
| Number of restaurants | 3 |
| Parking | Valet |
| Website | |
| http://www.halekulani.com | |
The name Halekūlani is a combination of Hawaiian words (hale + kū + lani) meaning "House Befitting Heaven". It is commonly spelled "Halekulani" without the macron (kahakō).
There are 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] It 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]
The current structure replaced an original building designed by C.W. Dickey, and built in 1931. [11]
History
editIn 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,[2] 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.[12] 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 expansion with new structures.[1]
Notable features
edit- The swimming pool's bottom is covered in 1.2 million South African glass mosaic tiles that form a distinctive design in the shape of a Cattleya orchid.[13]
- A century-old Kiawe tree in the outside area of House Without a Key
- Mahiole (Feathered helmet), a pair of 1983 stone sculptures by Charles W. Watson
References
edit- ^ a b "Memories of our house befitting heaven: a Halekulani history" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-04-13.
- ^ a b "Halekulani Waikiki Legacy".
- ^ a b "Resort Map".
- ^ "Halekulani". Leading Hotels of the World. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
- ^ "Halekulani: A House Befitting Heaven". Imperial Hotel. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
- ^ "Sydney ranked world's best city". CNN. 12 July 2005. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
- ^ "Halekulani scores high on national spa rating". The Business Journals. 19 March 2004. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
- ^ Heckathorn, John (13 May 2009). "Waikiki's Halekulani hotel celebrates its 25th anniversary". Hawai'i Magazine. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
- ^ "Leaders in Luxury: Peter Shaindlin". Elite Traveler. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
- ^ "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.
- ^ Penkiunas, Daina Julia (1990). American Regional Architecture in Hawaii: Honolulu, 1915–1935. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia. pp. 245-246
- ^ "Memories of Our House Befitting Heaven" (PDF). Halekulani Corporation. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
- ^ "Beach and Pool". Halekulani. Retrieved 30 October 2017.