The Kaʻupulehu Cultural Center teaches visitors about Hawaiian culture and history with programs and lessons held throughout the week. Menus typically feature Big Island-grown and raised items such as avocado, goat cheese, red and yellow tomatoes, mushrooms, lobster, fish, organic honey, and abalone.Ģ8,000 square feet (2,600 m 2) tropical garden spa, featuring eleven different types of massages and facials. ![]() The hotel currently has four restaurants: Miller and Lux, Ulu Ocean Grill + Sushi Lounge, Beach Tree Bar & Lounge, Residence Beach House. Guest services selects employees for the resort after subjecting them to at least five different interviews. Īfter almost eight years of planning, development, and construction, the resort opened in September 1996. Landscape design was completed by Bill Bensley Design Group of Thailand. Rooms are furnished in Hawaiian-style decor, with the addition of Native Hawaiian bedspreads. To add authenticity, Honduran Mahogany, koa, bamboo, and teak were used in the exterior and interior. Structures and hotel services were designed as "open-air pavilions with unobstructed views of the Pacific Ocean". The "low-scale post-and-beam structures" of ancient Hawaiian villages influenced the style, incorporating "broad overhangs, exposed eaves, and loosely defined interior and exterior spaces". Hill Glazier Architects designed two-story bungalows arranged in the shape of a crescent, forming a kipuka. To keep costs down, the developer, hotel operator, and architects collaborated to reduce the initial size of each room, saving millions. HKS Hill Glazier Studio of Palo Alto, California received the commission for the Four Seasons hotel. The saltwater pools were restored and preserved by site designers as part of the development and their natural features emphasized as an attraction. During the planning process, several anchialine pools and a historic Hawaiian trail were found on the shoreline. The Hualalai Resort master plan was produced by Belt Collins & Associates. However, a global economic slowdown stopped development in 1991, and the project languished until 1994 when it was completely redesigned from the bottom up. 358 rooms were planned by Kaupulehu Venture, with investment by Cosmo World Corp. and Kajima Engineering & Construction Inc. Project development began in 1989, with initial construction on the estimated $200 million resort starting in October 1990, with Taisei Hawaii Corp. Service is nothing if not attentive, in typical Four Seasons style, and the facilities are beyond comprehensive, including a kids’ club, a spa and fitness center, a Jack Nicklaus signature golf course, and no fewer than five swimming pools and eight tennis courts.The hotel is located on the Island of Hawaiʻi, in Kailua-Kona, on the site of an ancient Hawaiian fishing village of Kaʻūpūlehu. The bars and restaurants leave little to be desired, from Pahu i’a, centered around a giant aquarium, to the oceanside alfresco atmosphere of the Beach Tree and the open-air (and open-kitchen) Hualalai Grill. All modern luxuries are accounted for, including DVD players, interactive televisions and high-speed internet access, and the bathrooms are a sight to behold, with deep soaking tubs, and in most ground-floor rooms, outdoor showers in private walled gardens. The interiors are subtly, tastefully Pacific in style, slightly retro and decidedly elegant. ![]() In keeping with the Kona Coast’s unpretentious and authentic character, this Four Seasons is a restrained and relatively sedate affair, composed of low-slung two-story villas and bungalows, scattered amidst winding pathways, gardens and pools, every room featuring its own private lanai and most within view of the ocean. For as luxurious as it may be, this is anything but an ostentatious monument of a hotel. Thus it’s the perfect site for a resort like the Four Seasons Hualalai. And perverse as it may be to claim that any part of Hawaii qualifies as a well-kept secret, it’s nevertheless true that the island of Hawaii, for all its natural beauty, is under-traveled, relative to its neighbors. With all the action happening on the beaches of Oahu and Maui and in the deep forests of Kauai, it’s easy to overlook the Big Island.
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