GOLDEN MEMORIES
Renowned Mauna Kea Resort celebrates 50 years of welcoming, and welcoming back, special guests
Given his lofty ambitions for what was initially a beautiful white-sand beach framed by acres of imposing black lava, it’s telling that Mauna Kea Beach Hotel developer Laurance Rockefeller named the luxurious Big Island resort for the 13,796-foot mountain rising in the distance — the tallest in the world when measured from the ocean floor.
By any measurement, he realized his plans for a welcoming oasis, the first resort on the Kohala Coast. And on the eve of its 50th anniversary in 2015, the hotel remains a peak experience for several generations of elite travelers.
Patty Dinner, whose mother was part of the Swig family, owner-operators of San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel for 51 years, has been a near-annual guest since her parents attended Mauna Kea’s opening in 1965.
“My mother absolutely, positively fell in love with it. She thought it was one of the finest hotels she’d ever seen,” Dinner says. “She went back several times a year and took us every Christmas until she died in 1980. ... Back in the old days, it was just magical, the most gorgeous hotel with elegant simplicity and the finest service.”
Jack Brigham, a former senior vice president and general counsel for Hewlett-Packard, and his wife, Judy, have also been yearly guests, often with family in tow, since the Los Altos couple “fell in love” with the Mauna Kea on their first visit in the 1970s, Judy Brigham says.
“We just love the ambiance,” she says, adding that as collectors of Pacific Rim art, they particularly appreciate the resort’s many Asia Pacific artworks. “It's like an open-air museum.”
Now 75, the Brighams brought their four children with spouses and 14 grandchildren to the Mauna Kea for their 50th wedding anniversary in 2009, and hosted seven couples and family members for a 60th birthday party. “We’ve celebrated many, many special occasions there,” Judy Brigham says. “If we’re still here, we plan to do a big 80th.”
Lindi Simpson Marco, an Atherton amateur triathlete and mother of four, says her family’s Mauna Kea tradition began when she was a teenager at Palo Alto’s private Castilleja School in the 1980s.
“All you needed was the visor from Mauna Kea to be really cool,” she recalls with a laugh. “Even now I love the smell of it, the tropical flowers in the breeze, the orange towels. ... I have so many great memories.”
Besides Mauna Kea’s signature orange flower logo, the resort is renowned for Kaunaoa Beach, where manta rays frequently swim around its rocky point; the challenging Robert Trent Jones Jr. golf course; and the airy, midcentury modern hotel, whose 310 rooms became 258 as part of major renovations following an earthquake in 2006.
Like Patty Dinner’s mother, guests also cite the exceptional service — by workers often with equally long ties to the resort — as a major part of Mauna Kea's appeal. Without the help of front office manager of Alvin Oshiro, on staff for more than three decades, Judy Brigham family could not have staged its special celebrations. “He’s been very instrumental in our making so many trips there.”
“It's all about the employee," says general manager Phyllis Branco, formerly of Napa’s Silverado Resort. Mauna Kea guests “love coming in and seeing the greeter remember them. ... Our employees are from this area and they're very proud to work here, which gives it a very family feel.”
Diane Onodera, who has worked at Mauna Kea since 1968, also assist long-time guests like the Dinners and Brighams as part of the hotel’s Legacy Desk. “When they come here, it’s like they're going to visit a relative somewhere Onodera says.
These guests can be as passionate about protecting Rockefeller's vision as they are about sharing it with their families.
“I don’t want them to change a hair of it,” says Dinner, who now brings her four children, their spouses and her 11 grand-children to the resort every June.
“My oldest grandchild is going to be 13, and they all love it. I ask them. ‘Would you rather go to the toy store every day of the year or for two weeks to Hawaii?’ and they say, ‘Hawii.' It's a magic elixir.”