Historic Hotels & Inns in Hawaii

The regions

Where to stay, by region

Oʻahu

All three stays we list on Oʻahu are in Waikīkī, and all three are Historic Hotels of America members. The Moana Surfrider at 2365 Kalākaua Avenue opened on March 11, 1901, as the Moana Hotel, a four-story wooden building designed by Oliver G. Traphagen; two floors and concrete side wings added in 1918 gave it the H-shaped form now called the Banyan Wing, which is individually listed on the National Register and on the Hawaiʻi Register of Historic Places. The hotel says it has 791 rooms; to sleep in the listed building, book a Banyan room, as the Surfrider Wing (1952) and the Tower Wing (1969) are separate, later buildings. Also on Kalākaua Avenue, The Royal Hawaiian opened on February 1, 1927, as a six-story, 400-room hotel for Matson Navigation Co.; its rooms in that building are sold as ‘Historic’ categories in the Historic Wing, while the Mailani Tower was added in 1969. At the west end of Waikīkī, Hilton Hawaiian Village is a resort of several towers, and the one to book is the Rainbow Tower, which Wikipedia dates to 1968. Elsewhere in Honolulu, we could not confirm that the Manoa Valley Inn, in the National Register-listed John Guild House, still takes guests.

Maui

In Upcountry Maui, on Baldwin Avenue between Pāʻia and Makawao, Lumeria Maui fills the Fred C. Baldwin Memorial Home, which Kahului Railroad Company crews built in 1910–11 to designs by H. L. Kerr as a home for elderly men; it was listed on the National Register and the Hawaiʻi Register of Historic Places in 2011. The inn says all 24 of its guest rooms are in the historic compound; it runs as a retreat center with yoga and wellness programs, and individual visitors can book overnight stays. In Wailuku, The Historic Wailuku Inn is the house Charles Lufkin built in 1924 as a gift for his daughter-in-law, on the Hawaiʻi Register of Historic Places as the Lufkin Residence. Seven of its 10 suites are in this Main House, Lehua, Mele and Ilima on the Garden floor and four on the upstairs Veranda floor; the other three are in the Fairbanks House across the driveway, a modern addition. Lahaina’s historic inns are gone: the Pioneer Inn and The Plantation Inn burned in the August 2023 wildfire.

Hawaiʻi Island

On the Kohala Coast, Laurance S. Rockefeller leased the Kaunaʻoa Bay site from Parker Ranch in 1961 and built the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, Hawaiʻi Island’s first resort: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s open-air main building opened in July 1965 with 154 rooms, and the Beachfront Wing followed in 1968. Rooms are in both buildings, and a renovation of both finished in February 2026, when the hotel fully reopened; the hotel says it now has 252 rooms. In Volcano Village, Volcano Village Estates occupies the Johnston Summer Residence, a one-story Queen Anne-style house with an octagonal turret, built in 1931 and completed in 1932, and listed on the Hawaiʻi Register of Historic Places. Book the Garden, Junior, Grand or Owner’s Suite in the main house, which the inn calls the Dillingham House, or one of the older cottages; the five bungalows were built in 2015. We verified no historic stay on Kauaʻi, Molokaʻi or Lānaʻi: Coco Palms on Kauaʻi has been closed since 1992 and Camp Sloggett is taking no new reservations until 2027, and we found no register listing or Historic Hotels of America membership for Waimea Plantation Cottages, Hanalei Colony Resort, Hotel Molokaʻi or Hotel Lānaʻi.

Before you book

Planning your stay

Which rooms to book

Five of the seven stays mix historic and newer rooms, so book by room type. At the Moana Surfrider, the Banyan Deluxe, Banyan Ocean View and Banyan Oceanview Suite types are in the Banyan Wing, the original Moana Hotel. At The Royal Hawaiian, rooms in the Historic Wing are sold as Historic Room, Historic Garden, Historic Ocean and Historic suites; Mailani Tower rooms are in the 1969 tower. At Hilton Hawaiian Village, Rainbow Tower rooms can be booked by name, for example Rainbow Partial Ocean View 2 Queen Beds. At Volcano Village Estates, the Garden, Junior, Grand and Owner’s suites are in the main house of 1931–32; of the cottages, the former maid’s quarters, now a honeymoon cottage, was built in 1930 and the inn dates Umauma Falls to the 1920s, while the five bungalows are from 2015. At The Historic Wailuku Inn, ask for Lehua, Mele or Ilima, or for a Veranda-floor suite, to stay in the 1924 Main House. Every room at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel is in its 1965 main building or its 1968 Beachfront Wing, and Lumeria Maui says all 24 of its rooms are in the historic compound.

Before you book

On a check for November 18, 2026, Historic rooms at The Royal Hawaiian started at $477 a night, rooms at the Moana Surfrider at $492 and deluxe rooms in the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel’s main building at $908; The Historic Wailuku Inn listed its suites from $165 a night when we checked in October 2026. Breakfast is available at Volcano Village Estates, and Lumeria Maui’s restaurant, The Wooden Crate, serves meals; The Historic Wailuku Inn no longer serves breakfast but has free parking on site. Volcano Village Estates welcomes children of all ages but has no cribs; at The Historic Wailuku Inn, most rooms hold two people and children under 18 must share a room with an adult; and Lumeria Maui, a retreat center, says it is not a good fit for children in need of play and creative expression. We could not confirm parking or breakfast at the four large hotels, so ask when you book.

Ways in

Themes in Hawaii

Waikīkī’s beach hotels

Honolulu landowner Walter Chamberlain Peacock incorporated the Moana Hotel Company in 1896, and the Moana opened on Waikīkī Beach on March 11, 1901, a clapboard wooden building with Ionic columns; the concrete wings of 1918 are in an Italian Renaissance style. Matson Navigation Co., with Castle & Cooke, built The Royal Hawaiian as a luxury resort for its steamship passengers, and it opened with a black-tie gala on February 1, 1927, as the ‘Pink Palace of the Pacific’, a Spanish-Moorish building with Mission-style cupolas and pink stucco. After December 7, 1941, the Navy leased it as a rest and recreation center; it was restored and reopened in 1947, Matson sold it, the Moana and its other Waikīkī hotels to Sheraton in 1959, and the hotel marks its centennial on February 1, 2027. Hilton Hawaiian Village grew from Henry J. Kaiser’s Hawaiian Village Hotel; Wikipedia says it opened in 1955, took the Hilton name after Conrad Hilton bought half of it in 1961, and added the Rainbow Tower, with its tile rainbow mosaic, in 1968.

Mid-century design on the Kohala Coast

Laurance S. Rockefeller leased the Kaunaʻoa Bay site from Parker Ranch in 1961 to build Hawaiʻi Island’s first resort. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with lead architect Charles Bassett, designed a single open-air building in place of the cottages first planned; it opened in July 1965 with 154 rooms. The Honolulu firm Wimberly, Whisenand, Allison, Tong & Goo designed the Beachfront Wing, added in 1968. The hotel closed after the October 2006 earthquake and reopened in December 2008, and a renovation of the main building and the Beachfront Wing finished in February 2026, the hotel’s 60th anniversary year.

Houses that became inns

The three smaller stays began as a summer house, a charitable home and a family house. In Volcano, the Johnston Summer Residence of 1931–32, a main house, maid’s quarters and two-story carriage house set in a Japanese garden, is one of the few known residential projects of landscape architects Kanichi and Fujino Nakamoto, who also landscaped Liliʻuokalani Gardens in Hilo. The house is an unusual late example of the Queen Anne style, with fish-scale shingles and diamond casement windows, and is significant for Volcano’s development as a summer retreat for well-to-do island families. In Makawao, Emily and Henry Perrine Baldwin built and endowed a home for elderly men in 1910 and named it for their son Fred, who had died at 24; Ethel Baldwin and her daughter Frances ran it from 1911 to 1958, and during World War II its residents were moved to Lahaina’s Pioneer Inn while the buildings served as a military hospital. After use as Maunaolu Seminary dormitories and Maui Land & Pineapple worker housing, the buildings stood empty until a 2009 purchase and a 2010–11 restoration created Lumeria. In Wailuku, the inn tells the story that Charles Lufkin fermented ʻōkolehao in the basement of his 1924 house and built today’s laundry chute so he could stir it from his rocking chair; the house opened as a bed-and-breakfast, The Old Wailuku Inn at Ulupono, in 1996, and reopened as The Historic Wailuku Inn after a renovation from April 2023 to February 2024.

Road trip

Waikīkī to Volcano, island by island

Waikīkī, Oʻahu

Start on Kalākaua Avenue in a Banyan Wing room at the Moana Surfrider, Waikīkī’s first hotel, opened in 1901, or in a Historic Wing room at The Royal Hawaiian, opened in 1927.

Wailuku and Makawao, Maui

On Maui, stay at The Historic Wailuku Inn, a short walk from Wailuku’s historic town center and five minutes’ drive from ʻĪao Valley, or Upcountry at Lumeria Maui, the Fred C. Baldwin Memorial Home of 1910–11 on Baldwin Avenue.

Kohala Coast, Hawaiʻi Island

Stay at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel on Kaunaʻoa Bay, Hawaiʻi Island’s first resort, opened in 1965, in its main building or its 1968 Beachfront Wing.

Volcano, Hawaiʻi Island

End at Volcano Village Estates, near Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, in a suite in the Johnston Summer Residence of 1931–32.

Context

History and architecture

Hawaii became the 50th state on August 21, 1959, when statehood took effect under the Hawaii Admission Act, and most of the buildings we list are older. The Moana Hotel opened on March 11, 1901, as the first hotel on Waikīkī Beach and gained two floors and concrete wings in 1918. On Maui, Kahului Railroad Company crews built the Fred C. Baldwin Memorial Home in 1910–11, and in 1924 Charles Lufkin built the Wailuku house that is now The Historic Wailuku Inn. Matson Navigation Co. opened The Royal Hawaiian on February 1, 1927, and the Johnston Summer Residence went up in Volcano in 1931–32. In 1959, the year of statehood, Matson sold the Royal, the Moana and its other Waikīkī hotels to Sheraton. Laurance S. Rockefeller’s Mauna Kea Beach Hotel opened on the Kohala Coast in July 1965 and added its Beachfront Wing in 1968, the year Wikipedia gives for Hilton Hawaiian Village’s Rainbow Tower. Two of the smaller buildings took in guests much later: the Lufkin house became a bed-and-breakfast in 1996, and the Baldwin home reopened as Lumeria after a restoration in 2010–11.