Is it too late to indulge a baby boomer's teenage fascination with the exotic carefree style of postwar Hawaii?

By Wayne Curtis

Waikiki Beach skyline (Wayne Curtis)

The mai tai is inescapable at Waikiki Beach. This sunset-hued cocktail, accessorized with a rakish little paper parasol, clutters tables and bar counters in every restaurant and lounge within a half-mile of the beach. Holding out the promise of great tropical ease, the mai tai is the distilled essence of the place—never mind that it was invented in California.

So it was little surprise that on my first night in Honolulu, I found myself outside at the Mai Tai Bar of The Royal Hawaiian hotel smack on the beach. With waves lapping just yards away, I could only marvel at the drink placed before me. Adorning it was a tropical diorama as lush and tidy as a Victorian conservatory. A large wedge of pineapple roosted on the rim, presiding over a shrub of mint, a ruby of a cherry, a floating purple orchid, and a bonsai-sized parasol. That the thing was nearly large enough to hide behind proved handy when the lounge crooner veered near, recruiting customers to sing along. ("Remember that one? It's by a guy named Neil Sedaka.")

The Royal Hawaiian is close to what I had come to Honolulu to find, but it's a bit too old. Dating to 1927, the Moorish-style cotton candy­colored confection was the first of the great Waikiki resorts developed by the steamship companies to attract tourists. Mid-20th-century Hawaii is what has long haunted me, although more in the sense of Casper than of Jacob Marley. Too young to have lived it, I still got a glimpse, mostly through grainy photos in my seventh-grade social studies textbook and a misspent youth absorbing Hawaii Five-O TV episodes.

The images were vivid in my mind: Hawaii was the home of the low-slung, lava-rock hotel and restaurant compounds set amid lavish, well-tended gardens, often just off the beach. They had tiki bars—those Polynesian-themed joints marked by blowfish lamps, gape-mouthed totems, and lurid drinks served in ceramic tiki heads or coconut shells. Hawaii epitomized the carefree, indoor-outdoor style advocated by Sunset, a magazine even more exotic than Playboy to an East Coast adolescent.

So during a five-day stay at Waikiki Beach late last fall, my first trip to Hawaii, I rented a bicycle and went in search of my much-imagined haven of exotic midcentury Hawaii. How hard could that be?

Read more from our current issue online, September/October 2003 issue on newsstands, e-mail us to purchase a copy, or subscribe to the magazine.