In 1955, Henry Kaiser bought the 8-acre John Ena estate in Waikiki. He then added a 6-acre parcel that was formerly the site of the Old Waikiki hotel, built around 1900 and redeveloped into the Niumalu Hotel in 1928. The properties cost Kaiser $2.5 million. He turned the property into the Hawaiian Village Hotel.

The area was known to Hawaiians as Kalia, which held Waikiki’s largest fishponds. It was Duke Kahanamoku’s childhood home. In 1908 the military filled in the fishponds and developed Fort DeRussy, named for Brig. Gen. René Edward De Russy (17891865), superintendent of West Point.

Former Matson employee Bill Sewell remembers staying at the Niumalu Hotel. "It was out of the mainstream. It had a saltwater swimming pool built into the shoreline so that the waves freshened the pool on a regular basis. Leading to the pool was a long line of maybe 20 individual cabins, which connected the pool to the main lobby, dining room and hotel rooms. It was really neat."

Kaiser’s sons, who were running various industries on the mainland, "retired" their dad to Hawaii. Of course, at age 70 he still had a lot of creative energy, so he developed the hotel as well as KHVH radio and TV, which later became KITV. KHVH stood for Kaiser’s Hawaiian Village Hotel.

Don the Beachcomber believed the idea for the Hawaiian Village began with him. He wanted to build a Polynesian village in Waikiki and asked Kaiser to back it.

Kaiser declined to build what became the International Marketplace. Instead, he created something remarkably similar: a self-contained community, where the guests could find all the relaxation, shopping and restaurants they needed.

Martin Denny added new elements to the Les Baxter song "Quiet Village" in 1956 at the Hawaiian Village’s Shell Bar, when the village was a low-rise with 70 rooms.

Denny noticed that some bullfrogs in the pond next to him would croak during the song. When the song was over, they would stop. Denny repeated the song later and the frogs joined in again. Some of the guys in the band were inspired to make birdcalls.

The next day, a guest requested the song with the frogs and birdcalls. Denny was perplexed until he realized the guest thought it was part of the song. Later that night, Denny encouraged the band to make birdcalls, and he played a gourd with grooves that sounded like a frog. The song was a huge hit and was requested over and over. Denny guessed they played "Quiet Village" more than 30 times that night.

Denny’s 1957 album "Exotica" launched a genre of Hawaiian music with the same name. Denny described "Exotica" as "a combination of the South Pacific and the Orient … what a lot of people imagined the islands to be like. It’s pure fantasy, though," he added.

Martin Denny died in 2005. The 101st anniversary of his birth was April 11.

Kaiser sold the Hawaiian Village Hotel in 1961 for $21.5 million to Hilton, and it became the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

"Then he signed the largest lease ever with Bishop Estate for the 6,000-plus acres of land called Maunalua," Sewell continues. "He lined a smelly, rotten, trashy delta with rock walls, dredged and cleaned it, and renamed it Hawaii Kai."

The Hilton Hawaiian Village today has 3,300 rooms, 22 restaurants and lounges, more than 90 shops, a spa and full-service salon, fitness center, florist, medical center, 24-hour business center, the Bishop Museum Hawaiian Arts and Culture Center, church services and children’s programs. The Hawaiian Village is Hilton’s largest hotel in the chain.

Conrad Nicholson Hilton bought his first hotel, the Mobley, in Cisco, Texas, in 1919. The Hilton Hotel Corp. and Hilton International comprise more than 2,500 hotels with more than 350,000 rooms in 50 countries and all 50 states. They employ more than 80,000 people.

When Kaiser died in 1967, he left a legacy of 60 companies founded in 32 states and 30 countries. Revenues top $2.5 billion annually.

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Bob Sigall, author of the Companies We Keep books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.