Maui’s luxury hotels show off Hawaii’s culture
Luxury hotels in Maui’s posh Wailea area are paying homage to their roots
WAILEA, Maui — Arnold Schwarzenegger in the fitness room, Eddie Murphy by the pool — if only Twitter had been around on my first stay at the Four Seasons Maui at Wailea 13 years ago, I could have happily name-dropped in 140 characters or less.
Yet social media wasn’t the only thing missing in early 2001, when my husband’s company invited us on an incentive trip. After four days lolling in Hollywood-style luxury, I was itching to experience something of Hawaii beyond one of Maui’s nicer beaches. The Four Seasons, though sumptuous, could have been any expensive hotel, and Wailea in general meant atmospheric prices — not atmosphere. On later trips to the Valley Isle, we ignored it altogether in favor of places that had, well, a sense of place. A sense of Hawaii.
Wailea now is just as posh as ever — but, like the Hollywood stars vacationing without their colorists, its roots are showing. New and newly renovated hotels have woven Hawaii’s host culture into everything from restaurant and spa menus to guest activities.
What better time to learn the meaning of Wailea — the waters (wai) of canoe goddess Lea — than paddling an outrigger canoe? Many such programs come from cultural specialists who have long known that Wailea is indeed a special place — it just needed its story to be told.
Andaz Maui: A fragrant lei
Between the photographer posing fashion models in the catwalk-style entrance and the telescopes for whalewatching just beyond the open-air lobby’s sand pit, I almost didn’t know where to look walking into the Andaz Maui at Wailea a few weeks ago. Opened last fall, the dramatically remodeled former Renaissance Wailea makes a strong visual impression with modern, loftlike spaces and a terrace of infinity-edge and lagoon pools ending just above Mokapu Beach.
Other senses quickly came into play as an iPad-toting receptionist greeted us with a glass of lavender lemonade — a nod to the famous Ali’i Kula Lavender farm on the mountain behind us — and a fresh tuberose lei, whose gentle fragrance would perfume our room for days.
“I will not allow purple Thai orchids,” explained Kainoa Horcajo, Hawaiian cultural director for the Andaz, referring to the hardy but scentless blooms hotels typically used for welcome leis. “When I started here, I said the lei needed to be a real one for guests.”
I’d asked to talk with Horcajo, a Maui native and cultural trainer for the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association, at the end of our three-night stay at the LEEDcertified resort. I was curious about the intriguing blend of luxury, sustainability and Hawaiian influences.
The green touches — such as free woven shopping bag and reusable water bottles in every room, with filtered water stations every other floor — seemed in keeping with the Hawaiian ethos of stewardship. The aloha spirit of the unfailingly attentive servers and the premium local ingredients at Ka’ana Kitchen and Morimoto Maui, the Andaz’s main dining outlets, nearly justified their extravagance ($45 for the breakfast buf-
fet with many made-to-order options, for example. But why was reggae music in frequent rotation on the hotel sound system?
“When I met Michael Stephens, the general manager, he shared his vision with me, and we made a decision: ‘We are not going to be the most Hawaiian place, but we need to be true to this place, to be real and authentic,’ ” Horcajo explained. “The ‘Jawaiian’ music you hear is what we in the islands listen to.”
Besides a weekly outrigger canoe regatta, which begins with a traditional prayer for safety, one of his favorite free cultural activities for Andaz guests is a storytelling session called “Myths of Maui.” Beyond tales such as the one that inspired the entry sculpture of demigod Maui pulling the islands from the sea with a fishhook, Horcajo said, “We dispel myths such as coconut bras being Hawaiian, or the curse of Pele if you take a lava rock home.”
Like others at the Andaz, he doesn’t wear a nametag, just a button-size pin of lauhala, woven pandanus leaves, in a pattern known as piko, or navel — an image traditionally associated with forebears, family and future descendants. Hostesses, who wear abstract-print maxis rather than floral muumuus, sport lauhala piko bangles. Tellingly, Andaz staff made all the lauhala buttons and bangles by hand.
“It’s a reminder to us to honor those that came before us, and to protect this place for those yet to come,” Horcajo said. Four Seasons: Green team
Maui is renowned for its views of other islands. In Wailea, uninhabited Kaho’olawe — first deforested by ranching and later battered by Navy test bombs — takes center stage, six miles offshore.
When we stayed at the Four Seasons in 2001, the brick-red isle loomed mysteriously on the horizon. It would be nearly three more years before environmental restoration could begin, after the Navy had removed just enough unexploded ordnance to transfer control back to the state. Its barrenness seemed to magnify the sterile whiteness of our resort, clustered around a Greco-Roman fountain pool.
Flash-forward to the present, and both the Four Seasons and Kaho’olawe are looking lusher, with the help of the hotel’s “green team,” led by grounds and land- scaping manager Kevin Gavagan.
Responding to the Four Seasons’ corporate initiative to plant 10 million trees worldwide, since 2011 Gavagan has made several trips to Kaho’olawe with fellow employees — all volunteering their time — to replant native vegetation on the isle, which still restricts access for safety reasons. By mid 2013, they had planted upward of 4,000 trees on Maui and Kaho’olawe.
The sense of responsibility for Kaho’olawe comes naturally to Gavagan, whose native Hawaiian mother brought the family back to Maui from New England after he was born. “The island is part of our moku (district) of Honua’ula, which runs from the top of the mountain out to the sea,” he explained during a cultural garden tour of at the Four Seasons.
Gavagan had wanted to take us on one of the complimentary outrigger paddles of the resort, but my mother, 78, and I found plenty of interest in our amble through the multilevel gardens, such as the native white hibiscus flower, and the indigenous loulou palm Gavagan’s team uses to thatch tiki huts on the event lawn.
We also inhaled the scent of crushed mamaki leaves, used by Hawaiians for tea; drank coconut water from a freshly husked coconut; and stopped by the ‘iliahi, or native sandalwood tree, planted on Earth Day 2012 by the grand staircase, with a plaque explaining its significance. Sandalwood once covered many slopes in Hawaii, but became nearly extinct after Westerners’ trade with China began. The resort’s 39 species of indigenous or “canoe plants” — i.e., brought by the first Polynesians — can be viewed on the green team’s website, inourgardens.com.
The evening before, we had enjoyed the jazzy interpretations of the band at the free sunset hula show in the Four Seasons lobby, recently renovated to have more inviting, tropical feel. But we felt even more connected to Wailea in the garden, listening to Gavagan play slack key guitar while a barefoot employee danced “Ulupalakua,” celebrating yet another special place of Honua’ula. Fairmont Kea Lani: Elegant showcase
The Moorish architecture of Wailea’s southernmost hotel may not have changed much since it opened in 1991, but a recent renovation has softened its interior design to include more island elements. The Fairmont’s cultural quotient has also risen considerably under Learning and Cultural Coach Jonelle Kamai, trained by the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association.
Every new employee — from executives to valets — goes through an extensive orientation on Hawaiian values such as living pono (justly) and ho’okipa (hospitality). She also verses servers at Ko, chef Tylun Pang’s very popular restaurant, in the plantation era that inspires his multicultural cuisine.
Guests receive a fresh plumeria blossom to put behind their ear, while free cultural activities, which tripled in 2012, include outrigger canoe rides and stargazing as well as the more typical hula, lei-making and ukulele lessons. From Polo Beach, in front of the hotel, visitors can also take a unique, paid excursion on a traditional Hawaiian sailing canoe.
On a visit last January, I toured the Fairmont’s gardens with Kamai, who seemed proudest of the kalo (taro) that may one day be pounded into poi, as at one of the monthly daylong cultural celebrations that also began in 2012. That evening, I chanced across a local hula halau (troupe) performing under the lobby’s grand arches on a marble floor.
It wasn’t designed for dancing barefoot, but like much of Wailea, it made an elegant showcase for telling the story of Hawaii.