When the Royal Hawaiian Hotel opened on February 1, 1927, the Pink Palace of the Pacific in front of you was one of the most glamorous hotels in the world. The Matson Navigation Line built the Royal Hawaiian to serve the wealthy passengers arriving on its luxury steamships from San Francisco, a voyage of about four and a half days. To reach Waikiki in 1927 was genuinely to embark on an exotic adventure: the journey itself was part of the experience.
The Royal Hawaiian was Moorish-Spanish in style, painted that distinctive pink, with ceiling fans in the guest rooms and grounds planted with coconut palms and gardenia. Shirley Temple stayed here. Clark Gable checked in.
Charlie Chaplin lounged by the pool. When the United States entered the Second World War after Pearl Harbor, the Navy took over the hotel and converted it into a rest and recreation facility for submarine crews. The Pink Palace served thousands of sailors who came ashore exhausted and shell-shocked from months in Pacific waters.
After the war, the hotel returned to civilian life and the tourist boom of the postwar decades transformed Waikiki into the international resort you see today. The Royal Hawaiian, still pink, still elegant, is a monument to that entire arc.