‘Still in my heart’

A small crowd has formed around Larry Rivera on a sunny weekday morning.

He’s holding his ukulele, wearing patriotic colors — a blue shirt, white sweater and red lei.

In the background is a picture of Rivera on a worn sign that was displayed in that same area so many decades ago, when Rivera was a star performer singing before a crowded dining room at the Coco Palms Resort in its heyday.

“Larry Rivera’s Love and Aloha Show,” it reads.

On this day, though, it’s a bit quieter. Coco Palms, shuttered since Hurricane Iniki hit Kauai in 1992, is a shell of its former glory, with puddles and coconuts and bits of trash scattered on the concrete floor on which Rivera stands. Stones have fallen from the walls. The pillars are stark.

But Rivera, a man with seven lifetime achievement awards to his credit, multiple CDs, and a Kauai Living Treasure who continues to perform around the island, is full of game, still the showman.

“My name is Larry Rivera,” the 88-year-old says with his impish smile. “What is my name? No relation to Geraldo.”

Rivera was born and raised on Kauai. He and his wife of 64 years, Gloria, raised six children here. They have 17 grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren, and he can name them all in 35 seconds.

Which he does.

Warming up to his task, the colorful Rivera says he didn’t work at Coco Palms for 30 years, 40 years or even 50 years.

“I worked here for 68 years,” he says.

As far as he’s considered, he still works there, pitching his CDs and making jokes about the tip jar nearby. He performs wedding ceremonies, too, on the lagoon.

“This is what I do for a living now,” he says. “I work hard.”

Larry, strumming his ukulele, delights the group with short stories about Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Patti Page and talks about how he came to know them during their stays at Coco Palms.

“I taught Bing Crosby how to sing,” he says.

“Elvis came to my show right here. People ask me, ‘You knew Elvis?’ I say, ‘No, Elvis knew me.’”

He turns around and looks at the old, dated picture and sign behind him, which he recently discovered in his garage.

“That’s the sign I had right here, and I did all my big shows,” he says.

“The owners of this place are trying to rebuild this beautiful place where I worked all my life,” he adds.

The crowd listens attentively, applauds, takes pictures and leaves after about 15 minutes, heading back to the tour bus.

Rivera sticks around.

He wanders here and there, pointing to different spots, reminiscing about how things once were.

“This was the dance floor.”

“This is where I did Nightcap with Larry.”

“This is where I had a trio. People danced.”

“This was the dressing room.”

“This is where you checked in for your table. Every table, they knew exactly who’s sitting where, what number, what’s your name, everything, what’s your room number.”

His favorite stories revolve around Elvis, who starred in the 1961 movie “Blue Hawaii,” the famous wedding scene shot right there in the lagoon at Coco Palms.

He recounts a night he was on stage and Elvis and his entourage were in the crowd.

“Elvis was right there with 14 people, right in the center. He was like this with his mouth wide open when he saw me. I wanted to laugh,” an animated Rivera says. “He would stand up, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ as hard as can be and all the people with him would stand up and clap. They wouldn’t let me off the stage for three songs.”

“The emcee finally came up and said, ‘Sorry, we have to continue the show. If you’d like to see Larry, he’s going to be in the cocktail lounge called Nightcap with Larry, but the drinks are on you.’”

Rivera chuckles at his own story.

When Larry Rivera speaks about the good, old days of Coco Palms, his eyes are bright. His voice is light. These are not just words. They are his life.

The Rivera-Coco Palms connection dates back to 1951. He worked as a dishwater, waiter, bellhop, bus boy, bartender, front desk clerk and, of course, a singer. He even operated a coffee shop, opening at 5 a.m. after closing down the night before with “Nightcap with Larry.”

His hits, which he still performs today, include “Aloha Begins with Me,” “Waialeale,” “Father Damien,” “I Don’t Want To Say Goodbye to America,” and perhaps the one most dear to his heart, “Beautiful Coco Palms.”

Even in its current state of demise and neglect, Coco Palms is where Rivera is at home.

He beams with pride as he speaks of The Flame Room. The Lagoon dining room. The Coconut Palace.

He tells stories of the nightly lighting of 100 torches and how the flames reflected off the lagoon waters. He remembers the majesty of it all.

He laughs about how he would imitate Grace Guslander, the famous owner of Coco Palms, when it attracted crowds and celebrities night after night. People laughed, even Guslander.

He recites some of the words he said then to guests. He can still hear the drums that accompanied him: The night ceremony “recreating, recapturing more than 100 years ago when these grounds were the royal grounds on this island of Kauai.”

He stops and smiles. If he could do it again, he would.

It almost came to be — and maybe still could.

Developers had plans to restore Coco Palms into a world-class resort, and Larry had been told he would sing the first song when it opened.

But the developers recently defaulted on their loan. Now, new buyers of the property are being sought.

“I was kind of shocked,” Rivera says of when he read in The Garden Island the rebirth of Coco Palms, at least for now, was on life support.

“My first thought was, ‘What? Oh my God, those guys worked so hard, they spent so much money. What happened?’”

Rivera pauses.

He looks down, hands folded together. He falls silent.

He remembers.

“It’s still beautiful here. I come here every day and it’s beautiful. Even though people see it as an eyesore, I still look at it like a beautiful hotel that it was in my mind,” he says. “That I come here every day helps me. I haven’t lost Coco Palms. It’s still in my heart.”

He starts to sing. “Beautiful Coco Coco Palms …” then stops.

“That was supposed to be my opening song,” Rivera says.

Knowing that’s doubtful now, Rivera’s trademark energy and spark wanes.

But only for a few seconds.

As is his style, he quickly smiles. He remains upbeat, a delight to be around, someone who shines with spirit.

“There’s still hope,” he says. “Somewhere, there’s still hope. There’s still hope.”

And there will always be Coco Palms.

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Bill Buley, editor-in-chief, can be reached at 245-0457 or bbuley@thegardenisland.com.