08/01/2023
...And how did this Hotel come to be? "The pink hotel—and yes, the family says it has always been some shade of pink—was built in 1926 by Jindero and Hatsuyo Inaba. Both had come to Hawai‘i just before 1900 to work on the sugar plantations on the Hāmākua side of the island. Many other Japanese like them moved to the Kona side of Hawai‘i Island to escape the hardships and discrimination of plantation life. Jindero himself walked from Pepe‘ekeo on the east side all the way to Kona where he and many others found independence and opportunity.
He planted some of the first coffee in the ahupua‘a of Wai‘aha (an ancient land division), making him one of the Kona coffee pioneers. He also worked for decades as a cook for a German immigrant family in Hōlualoa. After 27 years in Hōlualoa, he and his wife, Hatsuyo, opened the Kona Hotel in 1926." -Ke Ola Magazine, January 2016