Mauna Kea Beach Hotel

In the early 1960s the crescent of white sand at Kaunaʻoa Bay, on the Kohala Coast of Hawaii Island, lay at the end of raw lava fields with no proper road to it, and Laurance Rockefeller decided to build a hotel there. The Mauna Kea Beach Hotel opened in 1965 on the bluff above the bay, the first resort along a coast that has since filled with them, and the model for most of what followed.

History

Hawaii became a state in 1959, and its first elected governor, William Quinn, encouraged Rockefeller to consider the Big Island. Rockefeller had already built Caneel Bay in the Virgin Islands and Dorado Beach in Puerto Rico, and he chose Kaunaʻoa. The golf course came first: Robert Trent Jones Sr. laid it out over the lava, and it opened in December 1964 with an exhibition match between Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. The hotel followed in July 1965, at a cost reported at the time as about 15 million dollars, then a record for a hotel. Ownership later passed to Japan's Seibu group, whose Prince Resorts Hawaii runs it. On 15 October 2006 a strong earthquake centred near Kiholo Bay, down the coast, damaged the building, and the hotel closed. It reopened in late 2008 after a long restoration.

Architecture and design

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed the building, with Edward Charles Bassett as architect in charge. It steps down the bluff in long concrete terraces, with open breezeways, courtyards planted as gardens and corridors that let the trade wind pass through. Rockefeller wanted art to be part of daily life in the building, and he assembled more than 1,600 pieces of Asian and Pacific art for it: carvings, textiles, bronzes, ceramics and a collection of Hawaiian quilts. The best-known piece is a seventh-century granite Buddha from India, seated at the top of a flight of steps in a garden. The collection hangs along the public corridors rather than in a gallery, so guests pass it on the way to breakfast.

Rooms and suites

The restoration after the earthquake rebuilt the rooms and reduced their number so that each became larger. Most face the ocean or the golf course, and the lanai are the point of them: the bay, the long line of the Kohala coast and, in winter, humpback whales passing offshore.

Dining

Manta, the main restaurant, looks over the bay and takes its name from the rays that come to the point at night. The hotel has shone lights into the water there since its early years, drawing plankton and the mantas that feed on it, and guests gather along the rail after dinner to watch them turn in the beam. The Hau Tree, on the beach, serves lunch and drinks in the shade of the tree it is named after, and the Copper Bar is the hotel's main bar, open to the breeze.

Wellness

The hotel has a spa and fitness centre, and a tennis club with courts above the sea. The beach does the rest: Kaunaʻoa is a sheltered bay where the swimming is calm for much of the year and snorkellers find green sea turtles along the rocks at either end.

Weddings and events

Weddings take place on the oceanfront lawns above Kaunaʻoa Bay and on the beach itself, and the hotel holds banquets and meetings in its function rooms and outdoor spaces. A luau with Hawaiian music and dance is held on the grounds on set evenings, and the golf course and its clubhouse give room for larger outdoor events.

Location

The Kohala Coast lies on the dry western side of Hawaii Island, where black lava runs down to small white beaches and rain is rare. Hapuna Beach, a long stretch of white sand, is next door. Kona International Airport is about 40 minutes south by road. Inland, the ranching town of Waimea sits about 20 minutes uphill, home of Parker Ranch and the island's paniolo, or cowboy, culture, and the summit of Mauna Kea rises behind it. Of all the resorts on Hawaii Island it was the first, and one swim in the bay explains why Rockefeller chose the spot.