PRINCEVILLE — Toni Wharton loves to spend time with her kids Makoa and Alohi on her family’s 5 acres in Kilauea Farms. “We have a ton of chickens and fruit trees,” Wharton said. “Every day we have kids coming over
PRINCEVILLE — Toni Wharton loves to spend time with her kids Makoa and Alohi on her family’s 5 acres in Kilauea Farms.
“We have a ton of chickens and fruit trees,” Wharton said. “Every day we have kids coming over to play and the first thing they always ask for are the Tahitian ice cream beans we have growing here.”
Kauai, she said, is a place where people want to help each other. It’s a place with heart. It’s why she loves it here.
“I feel like other places, everybody is caught up with themselves and working hard so they can buy this or that,” she said.
Wharton moved to Kauai from Oahu when she was 14 years old. Four years later, she was on her way to a career in the hospitality industry.
“I was a busser in the Living Room, the bar at the Princeville Resort before it was the St. Regis Princeville,” Wharton said.
From there she became a hostess, a food runner and a cocktail waitress. Then it was bartender, banquet captain and driver of the snack cart on the Prince Golf Course.
Her bubbly personality and non-stop conversational gift took her even further when she landed a concierge job at the St. Regis Princeville Resort.
“When I’d meet guests who were crabby from a delayed plane or being stuck in traffic, I’d take a deep breath with them and whip out a map and get them excited about the island,” Wharton said. “I’d tell them about room service or relaxing in the bar.”
One memorable guest wanted to surprise his wife on their 21st wedding anniversary.
“I had flowers set up in the room,” she remembered. “We put orchids in the shape of a heart on their bed. We also had 22 red roses in the room for her. Then, at dinner, I hand delivered white roses to their special table and she cried and cried.”
Today, Wharton literally holds the hands of her guests in the spa at the St. Regis. She is a nail technician.
“I’m a glorified bartender,” she joked. “Everybody tells me their good, their bad and their ugly.”
Her favorite client is a local 84-year-old woman who takes a taxi to the hotel every couple of weeks to talk to Wharton and treat herself to a manicure and a pedicure.
“She says the only reason she comes to the spa is for me,” said Wharton. “I sit and let her talk and tell any story she wants to tell and I care.”
The hospitality expert said she makes everybody forget about their problems.
“After they see me they don’t have a care,” she added.
At night, Wharton returns home to spend time with her children and her husband Joshua. It’s a simple and fulfilling lifestyle.
“I’m not a romantic myself,” Wharton said. “Buy me a plant, build me a shelf, I’m happy.”
Time out from their children comes every other week when her mother baby-sits, in exchange for a manicure and pedicure, naturally.
“I like living in the moment in a place where everybody is loving,” Wharton said.
• Lisa Ann Capozzi, features and education reporter, can be reached at 245-0452 or lcapozzi@thegardenisland.com.
