Kaua‘i’s haunted Hale Nani Hotel once stood on Nahuma‘alo Point, across from Koloa Landing in Po‘ipu.
Its former location is now the site, since 1988, of the Whalers Cove Resort.
Throughout its 18 years of existence, from 1964 until 1982, when it was destroyed by Hurricane Iwa, the Hale Nani Hotel (known also as the Seven Seas Hotel from its opening in 1964 until 1967, and later, the Po‘ipu Villas Resort from 1978 until 1982) was the source of many eerie stories and rumors of hauntings.
Numerous night maids, kitchen workers and other employees swore they’d actually seen ghosts there, and various items would disappear from rooms, and then reappear days later in the same place.
Some believed that the hotel had become haunted because ancient bones, sacred to Hawaiians, had been desecrated by being mixed into the hotel’s concrete during its construction.
Others came to the conclusion that Hurricane Iwa was therefore justified retribution.
Kaua‘i Community College anthropology professor Dr. William Kikuchi (1935-2003) visited Hale Nani during its construction and noticed boxes filled with skeletons.
“It was a gruesome sight,” he said.
The contractor told him that the bones had arrived mixed in with truckloads of sand from Keoniloa Beach; the sand had then been sifted at the hotel site, and the largest skeletal bones had been removed and thrown into the boxes, while the smaller bones were mixed into construction concrete.
Kikuchi then scolded the contractor: “Your concrete is filled with small pieces of human bones!”
And, he warned him to rebury the bones in their original resting place at Keoniloa Beach.
However, Kikuchi later discovered: “The bones weren’t taken back. They were poured into the concrete walkways around the hotel. An archaeological treasure was lost, and to the Hawaiians, it was desecration.”
After Hurricane Iwa devastated Hale Nani in 1982, its remaining concrete was hauled away and used as fill along a McBryde Sugar Co. road near Kiahuna Beach.
Since Whalers Cove Resort opened in 1988 on the site of the old Hale Nani Hotel, there have been no reports of it being haunted.
