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Whether you have lived in Kona for many years or will be enjoying your first trip, a tour through the extensive art at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel is a must.
Laurence S. Rockefeller opened the hotel in
1965 and it was a modern, western design combined with over 1,600 pieces of authentic Pacific and Asian Art. The art collection was made up of pieces from India, Southeast Asia, China, Japan, Melanesian and Polynesia.
The self-guided tour makes one loop of the main building and beachfront, which takes about one hour to tour or you can choose to attend the guided tour on Thursday mornings at 10:30 am. The tour is lead by Patti Cook of
Cook's Discoveries. If your time allows, we recommend attending the tour because Patti has such an extensive working knowledge of the collection.
Some of the tour highlights are described below, but we encourage you to see the collection for yourself.
It begins with two golden statues which guarded a temple entry in the late 1700's. A small Buddha, which is
behind the front desk, is over 700 years old and was carved in Japan during the Kamakura period.
Another highlight is the original Hawaiian floral paintings by Honolulu artist Lloyd Sexton in the Lloyd Sexton Gallery.
The flowers are pink hibiscus, royal poinciana, yellow hau and pink plumeria. There are prints of his work throughout the hotel rooms.
In the fifth, sixth and seventh floor corridors, kapa mats are shown and Hawaiian quilts.
The quilts are unique to Hawaii, where each one has a picture, story and name. It is believed that the quilts each have their
own power and therefore are not used as linens but rather are for display and decoration. The quilts include patterns of the breadfruit tree, of pineapple, of the native silver sword plant, and many other beautiful patterns.
Laurence Rockefeller asked his friend Rev. Abraham Akaka to see if he could have the quilts made. Kahu Akaka asked Mealii Kalama, expert quilter, and within less than one year, women from the congregation had completed 29
quilts. Those quilts have since been replaced by new quilts by Mealii Kalama with big, bold colors.
A third highlight is a collection of bells. There are temple bells, elephant bells, a gong, rattles which came from
India, Thailand, and Japan. They were assembled into the present musical sculpture by Edward Brownlee made in 1965.
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