Lana’i, the small village with big pineapple fields, changed little until the pineapple industry shut down and then, in 1990, the Lodge at Koele, a 102-room hotel resembling a huge country hunting estate, opened its doors followed a year later by the 250-room, Mediterranean-style Manele Bay Hotel. To some extent, but not at all overwhelmingly, these luxury resorts transformed Lana’i into a world-class vacation spot regularly on the covers of travel and lifestyle magazines.
Fortunately, the formerly isolated island did not lose it core lifestyle assets and qualities that had previously attracted visitors in previous decades, including myself, when just the Lana’i Hotel and a few vacation rentals took care of visitors’ lodgings. People still are coming to Lana’i for a compatible combination of resort and nature experiences that share a special beauty and enhance each other, whether it’s ocean activities at Hulopoe Bay or around the perimeter of the island, hiking or horseback riding on close to a 100 miles of quiet trails, whale-watching and beachcombing on deserted stretches of beaches, playing golf on stunning golf courses with fabulous ocean views, and “talking story” with friendly locals.
Once home to the world's largest pineapple plantation, accounting for over 90% of total U.S. production, in many respects Lana’i has not changed much since 15,000 acres ceased to produce pineapples and two of the nation’s foremost luxury resorts opened. The island and its one town, Lana’i City, remain uncannily quiet, not likely to attract hordes of tourists, and fortuitously removed from the mainstream of state, national and world events. Many of the island's older residents are former field laborers who retain their close-knit ethnic communities, friendly and courteous ways, and waving to visitors driving or walking about.
Most of Lana’i’s activities, in addition to the resorts, are the result of proximity to Maui, which is nothing new since the island has been under the control of Maui since before any recorded history. For generations of Maui’s chiefs, the island we call Lana’i was dominated by an assortment of very dangerous evil spirits. According to one of many folktales and legends about the island, during his banishment to Lana’i at the turn of the 15th century, Prince Kaulula'au used considerable cunning and terrific trickery to rid the island of these horrible spirits, thereby, making it habitable. As a reward, Kaulula'au was given control of the island and presumably had some success bringing others to Lana’i. Most of Lana’i’s subsequent history can be summed up as a series of awfully bloody battles fought by various chiefs determined to control the island.
An enterprising Chinese man who appears in the annals of Lana’i’s more recent history had the right idea when, in 1802, he started a small sugarcane plantation. At least for a few fruitless farming years, he earned the dubious distinction of being the first foreign resident. The next foreign visitors arrived in force as missionaries intent on controlling the island and growing a divine city rather than just crops.
In 1854, Walter Murray Gibson led a group of Mormons to the island to build a sacred city in the Palawai Basin. Unfortunately for his fellow Mormons, after ten years of pioneering and preaching they discovered that Gibson had used a great deal of their church’s funds to build himself a small cattle ranch empire. Gibson was cut off from the Mormon Church. Unfazed and certainly undeterred by his excommunication, the wily Gibson continued to expand his ranch and the outraged Mormons left the island. Gibson befriended King Kalakaua, became his Prime Minister and, instead of merely owning a cattle ranch, Gibson ended up more or less controlling the Hawaiian kingdom.
When Gibson died he left a substantial estate to his daughter, Talula and her husband, Frederick Hayselden, who started the Maunalei Sugar Company at Keomuku. The couple acquired even more land, formed the Lana’i Company and, as luck would have it for future residents of Lana’i, they hired a visionary New Zealander, George Munro, as ranch foreman. Munro planted the Norfolk pines that cover the mountains in the central portion of the island through which runs the commemorative Munro (Lana’ihale) Trail.
For visitors on foot, mountain bike or 4WD, the Munro Trail (16 miles roundtrip) winds its way among scenic mountain peaks and gorges. Neat rows of pine trees planted by George Munro surround the trail as it climbs Lana’ihale, the highest spot on the island (3,370 feet) and transverses the top of the mountain revealing 360 degree views of steep canyons and, on a clear day, Maui, Moloka’i, Kaho’olawe, Hawaii and Oahu.
The ever-resourceful Harry Baldwin, the missionary's grandson, bought Lana in 1917. Baldwin developed a 20-mile water pipeline between Koele and Manele that made the island extremely attractive to Jim Dole who bought it in 1922, knowing exactly what he wanted to do with it. Already in 1903, James Dole, cousin of Sanford Dole, appointed first governor of Hawaii in 1901, had produced the first 2000 cases of pineapples, marking the beginning of Hawaii’s pineapple industry. Dole planted and irrigated 18,000 acres of pineapple on Lana’i, built Lana’i City and a harbor, and worked the island for all it was worth in pineapples until competition from Asia and foresight forced him to relinquish his pineapple domain.
In addition to his family political connections, Dole was uniquely qualified in several ways to make pineapples flourish in Hawaii. He not only had studied agriculture, at Harvard no less, he even specialized in canning, although (forgive the snobbery) perhaps not in the Ivy League. He also had the business and engineering savvy essential to create a pineapple industry on Lana’i.
Dole had to build a harbor (Kamalapau Harbor), a town to house workers (Lana’i City), and connect them with roads over rough landscape. In the late 1930s, Dole astutely sold his interest in the pineapple business to Castle and Cook Company. Today, Castle & Cook owns 98% of the land on Lana’i and tourism at luxury resorts has become the island’s economic base.
It took a self-made billionaire with vision like Castle and Cook’s David Murdock to buy the island and spend about $400 million to build the Lodge at Koele, the Manele Bay Hotel and their terrific golf courses. Like other grand resorts in Hawaii, Murdock is in the process of selling appropriately expensive vacation homes and condos around these two resorts. From the beginning of the resorts’ history, local political and ecological concerns from a variety of sources have slowed the development process.
Thriving in the midst of world-class resorts and probably given a renewed existence by their proximity, the Hotel Lana’i tastefully maintains its connection to the 20th century history of Lana’i. James D. Dole originally built the Inn as a plantation estate retreat for executives and guests of The Dole Company. Located in the central highlands of Lana’i, on a hill overlooking Lana’i City, the temperature, surroundings and view were ideal for the purpose. Later, the Hotel Lana’i became a meeting place for local residents and visitors to dine and "talk story".
With an island population of only about 2,500 people, the Hotel Lana’i was a natural community meetingplace. Every place else on Lana’i closed down early and, except for the resorts, still does. Lana’i City’s three small general stores all are closed by 7:00pm. Like the Hotel Lana’i’s guests today, residents of the island could come and unwind on the porch and enjoy great views of the town at sunset through the tall pines. A big, beneficial change occurred in 1996 when the Hotel Lana’i was taken over by chef Henry Clay Richardson and his family. Since then, the Hotel has risen greatly as a culinary as well as a lodging experience and Richardson’s restaurant holds up very nicely in the shadow of dining at the Lodge at Koele.