“The Life”

Celebrating the arts, culture, and sustainability of the Hawaiian Islands Hawai‘i Island Edition July-August 2013 • Iulai–‘Aukake 2013

1907 Postcard HAVO 4857

Then &Uncovering Now:Volcano Old Beauty and Discovering House Hawai‘i’s ReincarnateOldest Hotel Anew | By Alan D. McNarie KeOlaMagazine.com | July/August 2013

he grand dame of Hawai‘i hotels is back! began checking in visitors March 22 for the first time since it closed for structural upgrades and interior renovationsT on December 31, 2009. On June 1 the lobby, dining room, gift shop, and bar also reopened for business. Visitors familiar with the island’s oldest hotel will find completely new décor. Gone is the dark wood paneling, dark brown overstuffed leather sofas, and most of koa rocking chairs that gave the hotel’s great room its former gentleman’s club feel. The walls are a much lighter color now, and the lounge is furnished with modern wicker-rattan, as is common in most Volcano House Hotel circa 1866, at the edge hotels in Hawai‘i. Vintage photographs displaying a pictorial of Kīlauea volcano. Mark Twain stayed here and wrote history of the hotel that used to hang on the walls of the bar about it in his book Roughing It. and hallways are gone. The great room is now decorated The Volcano House, circa 1912. The center was built in 1891. The wing on the right is the 1877 structure. Photograph by Robert K. Bonine via Library of Congress website

with copies of Volcano School art, the current lānai area once What remains are familiar staples. The famous koa wood hidden by a former souvenir shop is adorned with the artwork bar counter has been carefully restored. The two big basalt of Dietrich Varez, the front desk sits across from paintings of fireplaces with their bas-reliefs, one of Madame in bronze Hawaiian Ali‘i by Kamehameha descendant Kapanikuniahi Parker, and the other of Lohi‘au and Hi‘iaka in wood are still there. and the restaurant walls are adorned with replicas of vintage Some of what may appear new is actually so old that most Hawaiian magazine cover art. people alive won’t remember it. What’s happened in the Guests no longer dine from a buffet line. Instead, meals are past three years has not just been a renovation, it’s been a offered à la carte, and restoration. The national park and the new concessionaire tour bus passengers now spent an estimated $6.5-7 million, between them, to recapture lunch on bento boxes the look and feel of the 1940s hotel when it first opened on featuring poi, poke, November 8, 1941. salad, and a choice of When the restoration team took up the patterned carpet, for kalua pig, fish, chicken, instance, they found polished concrete. Polished concrete was or a vegetarian entree. something of an art form in the first half of the 20th Century. The new menu, When used in showcase buildings such as Hilo’s Palace Theater, wherever possible, those who created them were often considered fine craftsmen. features “farm to Today, some of that gleaming dark green concrete is once again table, Hawai‘i Island- visible underfoot in the hotel lobby and elsewhere. sourced food,” says Likewise, three “special rooms” upstairs feature the original Elizabeth Churchill hardwood flooring, rediscovered during the refurbishing, along of Aqua Hospitality, with another surprise—elegant green tile fireplaces, which sat the -based behind the rooms’ walls for decades until the restoration company that the new was underway. Ad in The Call, August 14, 1912 concessionaire, Ortega This isn’t the first reincarnation the hotel has been through. Public Domain photo on Wikipedia.com Family Enterprises hired Volcano House is claimed to have been in continuous operation to run the hotel. “Ortega from 1846-2010, though not in the same building. In fact, it holds concessions in started life as a Hawaiian thatched house on the north side of several national parks,” says Elizabeth, and “wanted a locally Kīlauea crater built by Benjamin Pitman, Sr. Later, in 1877, based operator who understands the Hawai‘i Market and is pono to handle the hotel’s management.” When the hotel holds its grand opening celebration in September, she promises proper native Hawaiian protocols will be observed. The changes are definite improvements. The little art gallery/ gift shop that used to sit behind oversized sliding doors used as walls between the lounge and the crater has been moved to the mauka side of the building. In its place is now a “meditation room” with huge windows highlighting the real reason that people come to stay at Volcano house: the incredible panoramic vista of the Kīlauea Caldera with Halema‘uma‘u steaming away in the distance. In Volcano House’s previous incarnation, visitors had to walk through the bar and out the door on the far side to get to that vista. Now it’s front and center. That same panorama, viewed through huge picture windows, 1940 Fire started in the kitchen at west end of building. dominates the spacious dining room and all the guest rooms on Note the direction of smoke is almost due south. that side of the building, as well. (The less expensive rooms on Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park Photograph Collection

KeOlaMagazine.com | July/August 2013 | July/August KeOlaMagazine.com the mauka side offer rain forest views.) a Mr. Jones decided to build a rustic six-room, single-story wooden lodge. It was replaced in turn by a series of wooden structures and additions, culminating in the current building, built in 1941 and expanded in 1953. Few people know more about the hotel’s early days than does Volcano architect and photographer Boone Morrison. In the early 1970s, Boone found the decaying 1877 lodge in the woods near the current hotel. As practice for the park’s fire brigade, the building was slated to be burned, and Boone proposed instead that it be turned into an art gallery. Boone himself led the nine man crew that used period tools to restore the old

Halema‘uma‘u, NPS Photo/Michael Szoenyi/geoland.ch

Past Renovations In 1891 a “Victorian-inspired” two-story addition was built. Then, in 1921, the original 76 feet of the 1877 building was cut away and moved on rollers to its current location. Recent work on the documentation of this historic building in 2010 by The Volcano House 1947, historic landmark Dr. William Chapman notes that the current 1877 building is overlooking the east side of Kīlauea Crater 25 feet shorter than indicated by contemporary descriptions of Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park Photograph Collection the building. It is possible that part of the old building’s dining room and the manager’s quarters were overlapped by the new building in what he describes as “the best construction job I’ve building and left in place. ever had.” Meanwhile, the 1891 addition was expanded upon, until it “I discovered the source of the coffee break,” he reminisces, eventually was a sprawling 115-room complex. “because midmorning and midafternoon, we had to stop and A 1904 picture shows a much different Volcano House from sharpen tools.” the one today: a white, Victorian-looking frame structure with In 1974, the 1877 Volcano House building was placed on the ornate shutters and a cupola. An interior shot showed a hotel National Register of Historic Properites and has served as the lobby that resembled a Victorian drawing room, complete with Volcano Art Center. The hotel’s logs, which date back as early a billiard table. as 1865 were originally meant to record changes in the eruption, include a plethora of comments by guests about the hotel and staff, as well. One praised the ‘neat little hotel’ with its ‘fine neat fireplace.’ Veteran visitors who’d been there before also made comparisons with earlier accommodations, which one KeOlaMagazine.com | July/August 2013 called an ‘open shed with a hole in the roof for a fireplace.’

George Lycurgus with son Nick in front of Volcano House annex October 5,1953. Photographer Tobin Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park Photograph Collection This was the building that first attracted the attention of the hotel’s most famous owner: George Lycurgus, a Greek immigrant and fruit dealer. According to tradition, he first came to Hawai‘i by accident when he boarded a ship in California for a friendly card game with members of the Spreckels family, who owned the Oceanic Steamship Company, and didn’t notice when the ship left harbor. George eventually settled in the islands, leased land and buildings of the former “Seaside Club” in Waikīkī; renovated the buildings and renamed it the Sans Souci Hotel. He bought Lorin Thurston’s shares in the Volcano House in 1904, where “Uncle George” became renowned for his jovial hospitality. After the overthrow of the monarchy, George remained fiercely loyal to Queen Lili‘uokalani and was briefly imprisoned by the Republican Newly remodeled Deluxe Crater View Room government. He was also said to have started, or at least to Photo credit: Volcano House have encouraged, the tradition of offerings to Madame Pele at Halema‘uma‘u. Remarkably, no one was killed. And George, already a senior As George encouraged Hawaiian traditions, he also citizen, wasn’t about to give up. He pressed the 1877 structure encouraged science, helping Thomas Jaggar to found Volcano temporarily back into service, kindling the fire in the hearth with Observatory. In fact, the observatory’s first room, still containing embers from the burnt hotel. He commissioned Hawai‘i architect some of Thomas’ original equipment capable of detecting Charles Dickey to design a new, smaller hotel in the so-called earthquakes, sits under a mound on the caldera side of Volcano “National Park Rustic” style, at a site closer to the caldera rim. House. The Whitney Laboratory of Seismology is on the National Within a year, the new Volcano House was up and running Register of Historic Places. again. That building received another addition in 1953 to create George probably had some interesting political discussions a 33-room hotel. with Thomas, who supported annexation. Finally, in 1960 at the age of 101, George passed away. The Then, Feb 21, 1940 turned into no doubt one of the worst new management named the hotel bar “Uncle George’s Bar” in days of Uncle George’s life. his honor. “An oil burner in the kitchen overflows and catches fire,” recounts Boone. “And the building goes up in an hour.” Current and Future Renovations According to Laura C. Schuster, architect Bruce Harden “tried really hard to complement the existing 1941 building,” mimicking some of its design elements found in the 1941 hotel. Although the annex rooms are laid out differently— they’re actually a little larger—they still have much the same feel, including those big windows to take in that magnificent view. All the rooms now have Wi-Fi, as well as thick white complimentary bathrobes and black golf umbrellas to accommodate Volcano’s weather. One modern convenience absent from the hotel is that none of the rooms have televisions. After all, who comes to Volcano House to watch TV? The real show is right through those big picture windows. ❖

For info: HawaiiVolcanoHouse.com, PacificIslandParks.com Contact writer Alan McNarie: Volcano House as seen from the steam vents [email protected] NPS Photo/Jay Robinson KeOlaMagazine.com | July/August 2013 | July/August KeOlaMagazine.com