 Welcome to Think Tech on Spectrum OC16, Hawaii's weekly newscast on things that matter to tech and to Hawaii. I'm Keisha King. And I'm Elise Anderson. In our show this time, we'll take a tour of Ilani Palace with Wilson Moore, an attorney who has conducted tours there over the past 10 years. Wilson is retiring from the palace and being recognized by Chief Justice Mark Rectonwald for his service to the judiciary and to the palace. Ilani Palace was the royal residence of the Hawaiian monarchs beginning with Kamehameha III and ending with Queen Lilio Kalani. It's a national landmark on the National Register of Historic Places and is the only royal palace in the United States. With the skills and determination of a lawyer, Wilson Moore has carefully crafted a remarkable tour of the palace and he has conducted and shared that tour with thousands of visitors. In his years at the palace, Wilson Moore studied its history, the dignitaries who came to visit, the stories and intrigues that took place, the painful events of the overthrow and Lilio Kalani's subsequent imprisonment, and the art objects and icons that were there during the royalty and that are there now. The grounds of the palace are managed by DLNR, but the palace building itself is managed as a historical museum by the Friends of Ilani Palace, a local nonprofit concerned with its history and preservation. Dedicated docents like Wilson Moore give their tours to educate visitors and locals alike about the history of the palace and of Hawaii. So we followed Wilson Moore on this, his last tour of the palace. After his years as a docent, he is very knowledgeable about the palace and well able to answer any questions. Like the palace itself, he has become a treasure trove of its history. On behalf of the people of Hawaii and the Friends of Ilani Palace, who maintain this gorgeous building welcome this morning, this palace was built at the request of King Kalakaua back in 1882. He lived here, of course, in his wife Kapiolani, and then his sister, our eighth monarch, also lived here. So you're standing on a very historic piece of property. This is the only official home of kings and queens in the United States, the only official palace. The EO is the High Flying Hawaiian Hawk. Lonnie is heavenly a royal. Hawk is the name of this palace. There was another palace that stood on the same grounds, but the same name slightly to the east of us, but nowhere near as gorgeous as this building. Monarchy entered in 1893 and a succession of governments took over. And in the 1970s, we started the restoration not only of this building, but of the 11 acre grounds. This palace cost $360,000 back in 1882. We've spent upwards of $15 billion in restoration. I think you'll find it. We did a good job. A coma mai, follow me please. This is the entry gallery to Eolani Palace. I think the first thing I'd like to have you do is to look around and see how beautiful this architecture is. Remember back in the 1800s, most Hawaiians lived in Hale Pili. Hale is the Hawaiian word for house. Pili is the Hawaiian word for grass. They literally lived in grass houses. The stairway would have probably caught your eye. It's made of koa. Koa is the upland variety of acacia, but indeed those are original steps. You can almost imagine King Kalakawa coming down to greet you personally this morning. The name of this room takes its name from the color of the furniture, the blue room. Let me introduce you to your host this morning. David Laumea Kalakawa, won the election of 1874 and came to power. Now when he came to power in 1874, that sandalwood had all been logged off. What's coming up is a new industry, sugar. But sugar needed a treaty from the United States so it could be introduced without having to pay duty. 1874, the same year he was elected, off he goes to Washington, D.C. Now gone for 10 months, somebody has to be in charge of Hawaii, so what he did was he appointed his sister, Lydia Paqui Dominus, to be his regent, and thereafter she became known as Princess Lillio Colani. Before in the fall of 1890, the king took what was supposed to be a very short trip to San Francisco, supposedly on some Shriner business. Sadly, King Kalakawa passed away in San Francisco January 1891, oddly enough in the Palace Hotel, age 54, having ruled for 17 years, and now Princess Lillio Colani becomes Queen Lillio Colani. She's married to John Dominus. John came to Hawaii age five, his dad was a ship captain from New York. John grew up to be kind of an interesting guy. He was governor of Oahu for several decades, and somebody she relied on for advice, and she needed it. Now Lillio Colani had gone to the royal school, spoke flawless English, but she had no government experience whatsoever. Nobody expected that Capilani and Kalakawa are not going to have children, they did not. Nobody expected that he wasn't going to come right back from San Francisco. Sadly he passed away, and all of a sudden she's thrust into power. Now the interesting person in this room is Miriam Lique Lique, sister of Lillio Colani and Kalakawa. She's married to Archibald Clayhorn and a very smart American businessman. Their daughter is Princess Kailani, cannot live in Hawaii very long without hearing the name Kailani. Hollywood made a movie about five years ago called Kailani, which was a beautiful travel log of Hawaii, but did not contain much historical truth, said she was sent to England, perceived keeping no, she was sent to England to be groomed to be a queen. But sadly we lost her to a horse accent later. Let's go dine with the monarch. Now notice that the monarch's chair is in the middle of the table, not at the head of the foot, and that's because of communication. If it took two weeks for a sailing ship to get here, that means two weeks for a newspaper, certainly no computers, certainly no television, not even trans-public phone. So the only way the king could find out what was going on in the world was to have a meal, probably talk more important than food. Food would be prepared in the kitchen below, brought by a dumb waiter, a pulley system. My school kids say, why do you call it a dumb waiter? I said, because it'd be pretty dumb for a waiter to carry two platters of food up two flights of stairs when you use a pulley system. Food, just so you know that nobody ever starved. That particular menu that we have a copy of from 1883 started with fruit. Then there were three kinds of fish. There was crab, there was mullet and kumuk, who was a lovely goatfish. And there were three kinds of broiled food. There was beef, there was brains, there was chicken. There was three kinds of vegetables, asparagus, peas, and mashed potatoes. Three kinds of game, there was duck, there was pigeon, and colea. Colea is the western golden plover that comes here on migration. The king loved colea. Now the glassware on the table is from Bohemia, which today would be the Czech Republic. Now the king had the finest wine cellar in the Pacific, but those large flasks that you see were actually for water. So with so much wine, with such a long meal, the gentleman could put water in the lady's wine glass so they didn't fall asleep at the table or worse yet start to out talk the king. These are the public apartments down here. We're going to go upstairs and see the private apartments. When the overthrow took place in 1893, there were perhaps 10,000 different items in the palace. I'm talking about pictures and forks and spoons and curtains and rugs, 10,000 different things within the confines of the palace. After the government took over, Capulani's executors started to sell everything off. Liliacolani's executor sold more things. Government did the same. Over the years, people would buy things from those auctioneers, scatter to the forewinds, and we've had a dickens of a time getting those things back. But we have been lucky to get 40 to 50% of the original contents of the palace back. If you take a look at the photograph that is on the easel, that's taken of this room in 1886. On the far side of that room, on the far right-hand side of that photograph, you see a round table. Actually, that's a tilt-top table. Look over there at the third window, you can see the tilt-top table back. And in the far corner, the blue minton vase, only four in the world, it's pretty imposing, Prometheus actually giving fire to the world. Now, it's not a coincidence that the king's bedroom here and the queen's bedroom across the hall is on the north side of the palace, because that's north. Why? Because it is the northeast trade winds, which keep us cool. So if the king had something important to go to the next day, the six-foot windows would be all up, and the shutters, you see, are designed so they would block the light, but they would still let the air come through. But then how does he wake up? There's no clock radio been invented, no alarm clock. Well, maybe the system would have been that a servant would come in, chanting a holy, a chant maybe about his genealogy or the events of the day, but now the whole purpose is now, you don't want to wake the king up paka-ki. P-A-K-A-K-I is grouchy in Hawaiian. You don't need a grouchy king first thing in the morning, so I'd be chanting very softly as you open the first window, chanting a little louder there, and then full voice, because I had to get the king up, and perhaps he would have said, Your Majesty, I've awakened you, but perhaps you'd like to take breakfast in the library. They call this the library, but it really is the king's office. This is where the king would do his daily chores. This is where he'd meet with his five ministers almost on a daily basis. This desk is an original from one of his residences. When he got to Paris in 1881, he saw a demonstration of electric lights. That so fascinated him, he actually met with Thomas Alba Edison when he traveled back to the United States. So in 1886, that 50th birthday party, the exterior of the palace and the grounds were electrified. Then the next year in 1887, the interior of the palace was electrified four years before the White House, four years before the White House. My school kids say, How in the world do you turn the lights off? Look at the walls, no switches on the walls. Well, the drill back in those days the king would call to his superintendent of the powerhouse. We think a coal powerhouse on the back of this property, ah, he was environmentally astute. The wires went underground. He'd call over and say, I want lights off at eight o'clock. And if you were reading a book, you were gonna have to finish your book by candle. There was no other illumination. Behind you on the wall is a picture of that first stop around the world in 1881, Japan. Now the king was always looking for another political alliance, especially in the Pacific, but he was particularly taken with one of the Japanese princes. Thought he was a fine young man. He proposed to the Japanese government a future marriage contract between that Japanese prince and Princess Kaileni. Now Kaileni was a very young girl at that time, but a future marriage contract. But the Japanese government would have none of it, said no, but how interesting to think, how different, Japan, Hawaii, the United States, and maybe the world would have been had that marriage taken place. Okay, this is a work room. This is the gold room. I think this is one of the most beautiful rooms, restored rooms in the palace, but it really is a music room. The Hawaiians are marvelous musicians. They not only played for their own enjoyment, they composed. King Kalakaua composed the lyrics to our state anthem, which is Hawai'i Pono'i, which in English means our own Hawai'i, and his sister Lili Okalani, a very prolific composer, over 100 songs, perhaps a lo-ho-oi, farewell to thee, is the one you would remember the most. The screen below is a gift to King Kalakaua from the Japanese Council. From 1868 to the turn of the century, over 100,000 Japanese came to Hawai'i to work in the sugar plantation followed by Filipino, Chinese, Portuguese, other races. That's why when you walk down any street in Hawai'i, you see a rainbow of faces, almost all dating back to the immigration to work in the sugar. The red chair in the right corner is the actual throne of King Kamehameha III, who in 1843 said, Now this room doesn't have any furniture because it was a guest room. Palace was finished in 1882 and the royal family moved in. 1883, the following year, Kapiolani realized she had a widowed sister. Sister's name was Kei Kaolikei P'ikoi, Kei Kao for short, and she had three boys. And so essentially, Kapiolani said, Sister, you've got no husband, three boys. We have this great big palace. Come live with us. And in 1883, that's what came to pass. 1885, unfortunately in 1884, Kei Kaol died. And so these boys have no mother, no father. They're wards of the king and queen who loved them. They were sent in 1885 to St. Michael's Military School in San Mateo, California to further their education. On an outing, they go to Santa Cruz Beach. What do you think they see at Santa Cruz Beach? Nalu, which is the Hawaiian word for waves. They go to a lumber yard, they make surfboards out of redwood, and there is to this very day, a plaque at Santa Cruz Beach, a testing to the fact that the very first surfing in the United States was by the Three P. Koi Boys in 1885. Now in 1912, back from the Olympics, comes Ducal Hanamoko, our famous swimmer and surfer, and he goes to Southern California and he starts surfing in Southern California. Now those crazy Southern Californians think they started surfing, but you know the truth. Three P. Koi Boys, Santa Cruz Beach, 1885. Let's go see the queen's bedroom. Okay, this is Queen Kapiolani's bedroom. It's all done in red, which is the royal colors. Here in the room is a reproduction of Kapiolani's dark satin gown that she wore to the Jubilee in 1887. Queen Victoria asked the ladies who were invited, the queens, to please wear something typical from the country from which they were arriving. Nothing is more typical in Hawaii than Hulu. Hulu is the Hawaiian word for feathers and lo and behold, the original would have had epaulets and ropes of feathers. Now, 1887 in the Golden Jubilee, I told you King Kalakaua chose not to go, but he sent his wife Kapiolani, the lady on this picture on this easel, and he sent, of course, his sister, Queen Liliokolani. Now take a look at Liliokolani's hair, the lady on the left. I do not know what you call jewelry, a brooch perhaps. That's 159 diamonds, two ruby eyes. It's a diamond butterfly. It's so ingeniously made that little springs in the wings so that when she walked, the wings tended to flutter. She paid 400 pounds for that in London, priceless. I have no idea what it'd be worth today. Okay, this is the throne room, the ceremonial center of Iolani Palace. Lots to talk about, but here again are the gowns. Remember I told you the significance of who, the feathers and the gowns in 1887. Jubilee on the left is a reproduction of Queen Kapiolani's peacock feather gown. Reproduction, of course, but you can imagine what a sensation that was when she appeared in that in London. The gown on the right was one of Liliokolani's gowns. Now take a look at those thrones, ladies and gentlemen. Remember that simple red chair that King Kamehameha the Third had? Look at this, twin 23 carat gold thrones. The two white Cahiles flanking the thrones are made from the feathers of the Laysan Island albatross. Carcassus, ladies and gentlemen, we didn't kill the birds. In ancient days it is said that each member of the royal family had a Cahile in a distinctive pattern and color only unto themselves. So when they went out in public to notify the public that royalty was coming, the Cahile bear would precede them and the Cahiles were so distinctive all you had to do was look at the Cahile and you'd know immediately which member of the royal family was coming behind. Now under the glass case in front of you are the actual crowns used in the coronation of 1883. The larger of the two crowns was handed to Kalakaua and he placed it on his head. The smaller of the two crowns was handed to him for his queen. Well, I've heard of an apocryphal story that Queen Kapilani wanted to get all gussied up for her coronation. So she sent for her favorite hairdresser who unfortunately provided a beehive hairdo. And accounts of the occasion said she had a little, the king had a little difficulty settling the crown on his head, but it was accomplished according to the newspaper reports. Two or three times a year, the royal family would have a royal ball and if you were lucky enough to be invited, you would have an engraved invitation delivered to your place of business or home and up you would come in your finery. Now Henry Berger was our band master for many decades. He always prepared a dance card, typically maybe 14 items, maybe the first one would be waltz by Strauss, then line, then foxtrot by so and so, two o'clock in the, no, midnight you'd go across for midnight supper first and then back for some more dancing and about two o'clock in the morning, the king would repair upstairs, you'd hear the clatter of your carriage come to the front steps and you'd know your gala evening would be over, hopefully with some great memories and this ends our tour too. I hope you come back and see us. Thank you very much. After this tour, Chief Justice Rectonwald presented a proclamation recognizing Wilson Moore for his years of service to the judiciary and to the palace. We were pleased to be there and meet those who came to the ceremony. Thanks to Wilson Moore for a great tour and thanks to Mark Schlaw for organizing the tour and the ceremony. If you wanna know more about the palace, check out EolaniPalace.org. If you wanna know more about the organization that supports the palace, check out Friends of EolaniPalace.org. If you wanna know more about the state judiciary, check out courts.state.hi.us. And now let's check out our Think Tech schedule of events going forward. Think Tech broadcasts talk shows live on the internet from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, then we broadcast our earlier shows all night long and on the weekends. If you missed a show or if you wanna replay or share any of our shows, they're all archived on demand on thinktecawaii.com and YouTube and on our iPhone and Android apps, both available for download on your smartphone. For our audio, go to thinktecawaii.com slash audio and we post all our shows as podcasts on iTunes. Visit thinktecawaii.com for our weekly calendar and live streaming YouTube links. Or better yet, sign up on our email list and get our daily email advisories. Think Tech has a high-tech green screen studio at Pioneer Plaza. If you wanna see it or be part of our live audience or participate in our shows, contact shows at thinktecawaii.com. Go ahead, give us a thumbs up on YouTube or send us a tweet at Think Tech H.I. We'd like to know how you feel about the issues and events that affect our lives in these islands and in this country. We wanna stay in touch with you and we'd like you to stay in touch with us. We'll be right back to wrap up this week's edition of Think Tech. But first we wanna thank our underwriters. Thanks to our Think Tech underwriters and grand tours. The Atherton Family Foundation. Carol Mon Lee and the Friends of Think Tech. The Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education. Collateral Analytics. The Cook Foundation. Duane Carisu. The Hawaii Council of Associations of Apartment Owners. Hawaii Energy. The Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. Hawaiian Electric Company. Integrated Security Technologies. Galen Ho of BAE Systems. Kamehameha Schools. MW Group Limited. The Shiler Family Foundation. The Sydney Stern Memorial Trust. Volo Foundation. Yuriko J. Sugimura. Thanks so much to you all. Okay Elise, that wraps up this week's edition of Think Tech. Remember, you can watch Think Tech on Spectrum OC-16 several times every week. Can't get enough of it, just like Elise does. For additional times, check out oc16.tv. For lots more Think Tech videos and for underwriting and sponsorship opportunities on Think Tech, visit ThinkTechHawaii.com. Be a guest or a host, a producer or an intern and help us reach and have an impact on Hawaii. Thanks so much for being part of our Think Tech family and for supporting our open discussion of tech, energy, diversification and global awareness in Hawaii. And of course, the ongoing search for innovation wherever we can find it, including the study of our unique history in Hawaii. You can watch this show throughout the week and tune in next Sunday evening for our next important Think Tech episode. I'm Elise Anderson. And I'm Keisha King. Aloha everyone.