Pagoda Hotel Gets a Glow-Up

Pagoda Hotel ventured into its redesign as a marriage of nostalgia and new, with a commitment to remain the place where kamaʻāina congregate, but with a modern aesthetic that would appeal to visitors from across the globe. Although renovations are ongoing—including plans for Rainbow Drive-In to take over the floating restaurant—the guest rooms and lobby have been remodeled, and new branding was launched in April.

Pagoda’s hardly unique in unveiling a refreshed look. Several Waikīkī hotels have also undergone recent transformations, but the Pagoda’s $9.9 million renovation is on the radar of local residents because of its long legacy as a hotel for locals. Opened in 1964 by entrepreneur Herbert H.T. Hayashi, the Pagoda has been where Hawai‘i families celebrate special occasions and where Neighbor Island folks stay when they’re in town. For six decades, it’s been a fixture on Rycroft Street, and the last thing its owners wanted was to abandon its roots.

“My father and I set the parameters that if we were going to reposition Pagoda, the bar was set that it needed to be a place we’d be willing to stay with our family and kids,” says WKF Inc. president Robert Kurisu, who purchased the property in 2022 with his father, Duane Kurisu, through their Rycroft Holdings. (Duane Kurisu is the owner of HONOLULU.) “It has to be clean, comfortable and approachable for local people, including outer island folks. We had our extended family in mind when we landed on the interior design.”

Yet no one disagrees the property needed a reset. Guest rooms were dated, and the branding was stuck in a past era. Chue Yang, general manager, says the hotel needed a new look and logo to keep it relevant, not just to local families but to travelers. “We’ve been important to locals for years, but at the same time, we want to appeal to a wider audience,” he says.

The First Consideration: The Name

Tapped for the rebrand, Wall-to-Wall Studios’ initial directive was to come up with a new name since Pagoda’s previous owner had retained the rights to “Pagoda Hotel,” says Bernard Uy, a partner and executive creative director at Wall-to-Wall. But as Uy and his team embarked on the project, they all agreed the best name for Pagoda is Pagoda. “We said, ‘Please, whatever you do, don’t change it,’” Uy says. “We all felt this pull to the name, ‘Pagoda.’” Uy cited the strong brand identity of Longs Drugs as an example. Even after being bought by CVS in 2008, locals still refer to the chain of stores as “Longs.”

“Our personal gut reaction was why we fought so hard to keep the name, to keep the koi, keep what we all love about it, and then build on that,” Uy says. “I think all of us who grew up here have been there. My personal story with Pagoda is for my brother’s 50th birthday when he hired my band to play on the rooftop. We all have personal connections.”

After legal negotiations, WKF Inc. secured the use of the name, and work began on a new Pagoda logo. Uy cited various sources of inspiration, including Rycroft Street, the Korean influences in the neighborhood, the pagodas and the koi. The final design is a bold, flexible and modular logo inspired by jogakbo, a traditional Korean patchwork art form with small pieces of fabric of various shapes and sizes that are pieced together to create a larger textile, Uy says.

Redesigned Guest Rooms

Meanwhile, local design firm The Vanguard Theory reimagined and transformed the Pagoda’s 199 guest rooms and corridors. Michelle Jaime, Vanguard Theory’s president and creative director, says her team came up with a narrative for the design by visualizing the type of people who would stay at the hotel, including hip, young people wanting a stylish yet affordable place to stay in the city. “The way that we approached the design was first thinking about the place,” Jaime says. “Ke‘eaumoku is one of the true local places here, and we considered the hotel’s founder, Mr. Hayashi, the culture of Ke‘eaumoku and the surroundings before we decided on a narrative.”

As such, the rooms have a modern Asian-Island aesthetic, with contemporary, upgraded furnishings and Asian-inspired panel artwork by local artist Lauren Trangmar. “Another thing that we leaned towards was the wabi-sabi look,” Jaime says. “Being that it’s an older property and the imperfections, we leaned into that by not trying to make everything perfect.”

A Refreshed Lobby

Pagoda’s glow-up is instantly apparent in its bright, redesigned lobby, its walls covered with colorful, modern artwork, including pieces from such local artists as Margaret Rice, Nick Kuchar and Punky Aloha’s Shar Tui‘asoa, alongside archival imagery that pays homage to Pagoda’s past.

Like the guest rooms, the lobby honors the past but also “infuses it with new energy that is resonating with younger audiences,” says Luke Williams, project manager and architect at WKF Inc. “Overall, we’re super pleased with the remodel. We do have a continued vision on the retail side, so it’s still a work in progress, but we’re super happy where it’s at. It’s been well received, and the occupancy shows that, and so does the buzz.”

pagodahotel.com, @thepagodahotel

Diane Seo is the editorial director of HONOLULU Magazine.