Mana in a Sacred Place: Keauhou Beach Resort ‘Ohana
By Marya Mann
One of the last hula performances at the Keauhou Beach Resort appears before us, spellbinding and alluring. In his soothing baritone, Kumu Keala Ching chants the genealogical history of this powerful place, where kings and queens, leaders and billionaires, musicians and dancers have walked. The oli, or chant, summons the resplendent presences of star-voyagers and sea-breathers, the ‘Iwa bird and cloud-piercing rainbows—an array of potent elements and heroic human actions reminding us to be mindful of the historical events, and also of the lessons to be learned as we move on into our future.
The graceful dancers illustrate the stories, matching the rhythms of Kumu Keala’s beat on the ipu, a gourd drum. Because the Keauhou Beach Resort is closing and scheduled to be torn down, the dancers’ feet are especially sensitive to the floor of the Verandah Lounge, where the closing concert of the hotel is underway. The chant acts like a fishnet, gathering together the stories of species and clans who have lived here. Honoring magnificent journeys, the mishaps and the noble deeds which occurred here, the hula invokes the invisible essence of a multi-layered past which has led us into the heart-breaking present.
Mana, spiritual power invoked by Kumu Keala’s genealogical oli, is alive in the room, meant to empower the community to move forward, despite loss or disappointment. For many people at this closing concert, however, the reality is that the 40-year-old hotel, one of Hawai‘i’s most Hawaiian hotels, the island’s tenth largest accommodation and the 24th largest employer (according to Pacific Business News) is about to be demolished.
The Mana is the Message
Leaving behind something we value deeply is never easy. Nor is sacrificing one good for a supposedly greater good. This hotel is nothing less than revered. When the sun is setting over the long white wedge of the building in its ten-acre nest of Royal Gardens, the remaining light dusts the walkways and sacred pools with vibrant color. The ten ancient heiau, or temples, bordered by turquoise tidepools, black lava and a sapphire sea, contain the ancient mana of Polynesian voyagers. More recent mana is everywhere, among the stately gingers and fragrant orchids twining around monkeypod trees near the parking lot and up toward the mountains. Mana emanates from the replica of King David Kalākaua’s summer house near the hotel, from the waterfront fishing shrine and from the great big blue beyond in the Pacific Ocean itself.
Hawaiians teach that there is mana in everything, and if you cast a “net” to capture an essence of mana instead of fish, perhaps by singing a chant or drawing certain memories to the heart, the rope and the spaces between the ropes are still required. The seen and the unseen both contribute to the effectiveness of the net.
Here at Keauhou, home of a revered archaeological site, brimming with ancient healing pools, sacred temples, and tropical seaside solitude, people can feel Hawai‘i’s ancient family tree, both roots and branches, and carry the story forward.
“You feel it when you are on this property,” says Kahu Dennis Kamakahi, an instructor at Keola Beamer’s Aloha Music Camp, which has been displaced by the closing. “It’s like living in real history. There are certain places that conduct energy for you to learn. So when you’re participating here, it’s like you’re going back to the ancient times. And now it’s a hālau; it’s a school.”
Mana at Keauhou runs through deep veins inherited from nature’s undersea volcanoes that thrust this island above water more than 500,000 years ago, and mana flows from the men and women who have walked these trails—men like King Kamehameha and women like his great-granddaughter, Princess Pauahi. “Keauhou was home to Hawaiian royalty,” says Paul Horner, former General Manager who led the hotel to its modern stature with innovative Hawaiian Cultural classes and programs. “From the start, this was a center for training leaders. There was something special about it.”
When he first visited Keauhou in 2000, before any of the restoration of the heiau took place, he said, “I knew instantly. The hair stood up on the back of my arms and back of my head. It was a good feeling, not a scary feeling, like I was being caressed.”
Paul joined the staff eight years later, and what evolved under his management was something like a renaissance in Hawaiian culture on the island. “I think that it’s going to be hard to measure how the loss of the hotel affects our local community. So many kūpuna came into the building itself, as well as to the land. Power caresses everything on the land. It’s so important. People like Herb Kāne had an art studio on the fifth floor in the back of the hotel. His mana is in there. His spirit is in there.”
The late, highly celebrated Hawaiian artist worked in a hotel room overlooking Kahalu‘u Bay for three years in the 1980s on a series of paintings including “The Death of Captain Cook.” Mr. Kāne said, “I always wanted to do a series of portraits of people who had trades and professions in the old society—not just the chiefs.” His wife Deon Kāne added, “They built a room for the paintings.”
Painters weren’t the only artists to be attracted to the power of Keauhou. In 1987, Kumu Hula George Na‘ope was the main act at Keauhou. He danced here with his band, which included famed musician Bobby Koanui, and featured his student, Etua Lopes, who performed before a succession of locals and visitors who flocked to the historic hotel. Uncle George later became one of the visionary co-founders of the Merrie Monarch Festival.
“It’s been a place for the gathering of the clans,” explains Paul. “People left their mana, their spirit, there.” The mana of the area, he says, stems from even deeper roots. Before the hotel was built in 1970, settlements, battles, restorations, and significant social occasions happened at Keauhou. Some events may go back a thousand years or more. This heritage has touched on nearly everything that human beings value—family, agriculture, the sacredness of relationships, and ho‘okuleana (to take responsibility).
In losing the hotel, Hawai‘i Island may be losing more than bricks and mortar. The island is losing family, an extended ‘ohana of artists, musicians, educators, scholars, avid students, and multi-generational relationships. The spacious open-air lobby and jasmine-scented lanai-fostered stories, hugs, and musings just above the moray eels swimming below the railing.
For many people, both visitors and residents of Hawai‘i Island, the falling of the hotel is akin to the falling of a kupuna, a grandparent. The hotel wasn’t just what you could read about on Expedia. You checked in at the front desk, bleary-eyed from travel, and the fragrances of gardenia and coconut adjusted your attitude. In the morning, Kona coffee aroma wafted through the restaurant and aunties were singing and laughing while weaving plumeria and orchid lei.
“We had Hawaiian language practice every morning. Kumu Keala Ching used Hulo!, a Hawaiian word game similar to Scrabble—except the tiles have the Hawaiian alphabet, to teach the language. Everyone, when they got off the elevator, would see sharing—‘ohana—and that’s how they became part of the family. They were included. We wanted the cultural program to caress our guests,” said Paul.
Paul began working in 2008 with Gregory C. Chun, Ph.D., Vice President for Kamehameha Schools. He credits Dr. Chun with the vision for a new branch of Kamehameha Schools system, the Keauhou-Kahalu‘u Education Group, to provide ‘āina-based education and culture-based instruction. Previously, Dr. Chun had served as President of Bishop Holdings Corporation and Subsidiaries, the for-profit arm of Kamehameha Schools.
“The vision was to reintroduce the hotel as a cultural and educational program,” says Paul. “We finished a renovation in April, then the recession hit. Aloha Airlines and ATA Airlines, Inc., formerly known as American Trans Air, both went belly up. That took away 290,000 seats to the island. We weren’t the most luxurious area around, but we thought the cultural program would win over the cultural tourism market.”
To bring out the true history of the place and tell the story to the world, Kumu Rolinda Bean started singing favorite Hawaiian tunes and teaching ‘ukulele inside the hotel. Kumu Keala Ching brought Hālau Na Wai Iwi Ola (his hula school) to the hotel once or twice a week. “They would do their hula practice right there in the Royal Gardens. He welcomed everybody into his hālau. If you wanted to learn, you were welcomed. He brought them in the real Hawaiian way. No one was turned away.”
“There was another cultural program too: Huaka‘i Tours (Huaka‘i is the Hawaiian word for journey) on the sacred grounds, which cost a fee. I convinced the trustees,” says Paul, “that initially as we developed the program, we needed to do cultural programs we did not monetize, because of the specialness of the place.”
The free cultural program brought a new ‘ohana to life. Children and adults singing with ‘ukulele on the lānai, hula in the Royal Gardens, Hawaiian games, chanting lessons and lei-making and guests were welcome to participate. Most did. Paul hired a staff of four, including Kumu’s Keala Ching, Rolina Bean, Healani Kimitete, and Mana Hasagawa. “Mana would be singing and get everyone to sing along together. It was special,” he recalled.
The cultural programming really drew more and more people to the hotel. “It really took off—in the midst of a recession,” says Paul.
“We have a vision. Some may think it’s lofty,” said Dr. Chun. “We want visitors to walk away asking themselves fundamentally different questions, not just learn about Hawaiian culture. We want them to go away asking questions about their own roots, their own genealogy. How did they come to view the world from their point of view?”
The Hawaiian Cultural Program at the hotel was dissolved in early 2011, and Paul left the hotel to serve as the resort manager at the Sheraton Keauhou Bay Resort and Spa, where he was instrumental in the $16 million renovation and in creating cultural programming for guests to enhance their understanding of the historic area. In June 2012, he moved to a position as Managing Director of Marketing for the Big Island Visitor Bureau.
On August 22 at 2 pm, hundreds of Hawaiian families were shocked when Kamehameha Schools President Dee Jay Mailer, Kamehameha Investment Company CEO Kyle Chock, and Outrigger Hotels executives paid the staff a surprise visit. The hotel was too expensive to repair, they announced; it would be razed to make way for a new culture and education center.
Ms. Mailer and Mr. Chock emphasized their duty to preserve Hawaiian culture, support Kamehameha Schools educational programs, and restore the land and seacoast to a pristine condition. They regretted the job losses, explaining it was necessary.
“Executives then left through the back door of the meeting room,” reported Sherry Bracken, “saying they had a press briefing to attend, and did not speak with reporters waiting for them at the front door.”
“It’s got to be hard for asset managers to make that kind of decision,” says Paul.
The Last Dance
Onstage, Kumu Rolinda Bean says, “As of Wednesday, your waiters and bartenders won’t have a job. Tip them well.”
Everyone cheers to encourage many of the 113 workers who have lost their jobs. “Let’s bring the house down,” shouts Rolinda in a double entendre that stirs laughter from the crowd; most know that the owners have already applied for demolition permits.
The closing concert is rocking. The doors of the grand old hotel will officially close in two days. The initial anguish of displaced employees and adoring visitors from all over the world has—at least for tonight—given way to acceptance and celebration. Here at the closing concert, Kumu Mana is singing and dancing hula. Aunty Kaipo Harris sings and plays the upright bass while Konabob Stoffer kicks it up a notch with his Hawaiian steel guitar. The evening is filled with gleeful chaos, tears, laughter and more dancing. Someone encourages, “Let’s go, kupuna! One more dance.” Aunty Lei gets up and dances to the last song.
“We want to cooperate, not be competitive. That’s the future of this island,” Paul says. “We want to adopt geo-tourism, connected to the local culture. So people feel more connected when they come here. It’s not the photographs. It’s the mental connections they get. When you tell your story like the Hawaiians say, ‘share your mana‘o,’ it’s very personal. Two people sharing mana‘o, it’s going to be different, not like anybody else. You’re giving that person a part of you when you share mana‘o. You don’t talk from here,” he points to his head. “You talk from here,” Paul touches his heart.
For the 200 or more people in this ‘ohana gathered for the final a hui hou, “until we meet again,” closing the cultural program and hotel seems incongruent with the Bishop Estate and Kamehameha Schools’ mission of furthering Hawaiian education.
“So what happens when the building is gone? We cannot measure it. It might be good. I don’t know,” muses Paul. “All that energy is still there. I don’t want to take the building away. Maybe there is a better use for it.” He stops. Tears soften his eyes. “There are more people we haven’t heard from yet who have ties to this place, who love it. They haven’t spoken up yet. They’re in mourning.”
Resources:
Kamehameha Schools: ksbe.edu
Sherry Bracken: BigIslandNewsCenter.com/keauhou-beach-hotel-closing-kamehameha-schools-will-tear-it-down/
Pacific Business News: BizJournals.com/pacific/stories/1997/08/11/story7.html?page=all
Peter T. Young and Ho‘okuleana, LLC, a land use planning and consulting firm:
ToTakeResponsibility.blogspot.com/2012/
10/holua-keauhou-hawaii.html
Samuel P. King & Randall W. Roth, Broken Trust (University of Hawai‘i: Honolulu) 2006.
Mahalo to photographer Chris Stewart: chrisstewart1455 AT msn DOT com
Contact writer Marya Mann: marya AT loomoflove DOT com
