Opened in 1927, this Spanish Colonial Revival-style hotel was designed by Warren &amp; Wetmore for the Territorial Hotel Company as a luxury resort hotel for tourists, and was heavily inspired by the work of Rudolph Valentino.  One of the most iconic buildings on Waikiki, the hotel has evolved over time due to changes in social attitudes, expectations, and economic conditions, but the original building in the complex is very well preserved.  Replacing the previous Honolulu Seaside Hotel, which opened around the turn of the 20th Century, and was originally surrounded by a 15-acre garden, with the H-shaped hotel featuring 400 rooms with bathrooms and balconies, and opened to great fanfare on February 1, 1927, with a black tie gala attended by 1,200 guests commemorating the occasion.  The Territorial Hotel Company went bankrupt during the Great Depression, with ownership then coming under the Matson Navigation Company in 1932.  The hotel continued to serve well-heeled visitors until World War II, when it was utilized as an R&amp;R Center by the United States Military, and was surrounded by a Concertina wire barricade during this time.  Following the end of the war, the hotel resumed its normal service, and regained its status as a popular accommodation for wealthy and well-to-do travelers.  In 1959, the hotel was sold to Sheraton Hotels and Resorts by Matson, which divested itself from its Waikiki hotels at this time.  The hotel features a picturesquely asymmetrical pink stucco-clad exterior with a low-slope roof enclosed by a low parapet wall at the perimeter, green tile hipped roofs on some of the towers, lanais with arched openings and orthogonal columns, decorative trimwork at the towers, corners, and gable parapets of the building, a large Spanish Mission belfry atop a tower at the center of the building, a smaller belfry on a corner tower on the land side of the building, and potted plants in curved notches in the rooftop parapets.  The building’s interior features a long corridor on the first floor open to the ocean with decorative pilasters, textured plaster walls and ceilings, arches, and tile floors, a lobby with arches, columns, pilasters, and wainscoting, staircases with quarry tile risers and treads, decorative painted Spanish-style ceilings with decorative beams in the lounge on the ocean side of the hotel, and beautiful stone floors on the lanais around the building’s exterior.  The building was extended in the mid-20th Century with the addition of a series of one-story wings housing the monarch room and additional service and amenity space on the ocean side of the hotel, as well as the addition of the modern Royal Hawaiian Tower Wing in 1969 immediately Diamond Head of the historic hotel, which features a small pool in the courtyard between it and the older hotel building.  The hotel was purchased in 1974 by Kyo-ya Company Ltd, led by Japanese businessmen Kenji Osano and Masakuni Osano, and was later inherited by Takamasa Osano.  In 1980, the Royal Hawaiian Center was opened along the Kalakaua Avenue frontage of the hotel property, housing various retail and restaurant offerings in the increasingly built-up Waikiki.  The hotel was extensively renovated between 2008 and 2010, restoring the exterior and common spaces, and updating the guest accommodations.  One of the most iconic hotel properties in Hawaii and in the United States as a whole, the Royal Hawaiian is a member of the Historic Hotels of America, though it is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  The hotel remains one of the most prestigious hotels in Hawaii, and has been nicknamed the "The Pink Palace of the Pacific" for its color and distinctive architecture.
w_lemay
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