In the 1920s and 1930s, where did Oahu’s wealthy go for a retreat? The answer may surprise you. They went to Pearl City. At the time, Pearl City referred to the peninsula that extended into Middle Loch. The district didn’t extend beyond Kamehameha Avenue until after World War II.
Soon after Ben Franklin Dillingham opened his rail line in 1890 and built Pearl City, the upper crust of Oahu built homes along the water.
Founded in 1924 in the then-Territory of Hawaii, the Pearl Harbor Yacht Club was described by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin as a "place to be and the place to be seen, whether one happened to own a yacht or not." Balls, parties and boat races were held regularly.
Albert Afong, son of Hawaii’s first Chinese millionaire, Chun Afong, sold his two-story home along the waterfront to the new Pearl Harbor Yacht Club.
Author Stu Glauberman described the clubhouse as a "colonial-style manse situated on five acres on the Pearl City peninsula, overlooking Middle Loch and the sugar cane fields of Waipahu. Huge ensign flags hung from the house as women in white hats and long dresses and men in suits and straw hats lounged on the veranda and dined out of doors on linen table cloths."
"The pre-war club was a place for Hawaii’s leading families and members of the Big 5 commercial and plantation companies," said Dean Smith, the club’s staff commodore. "They included the Dillinghams, Frears, Castles, Cookes, Dowsetts, Spauldings, McInernys, Mott-Smiths, Wilders, Atkinsons, Damons, James Dole and Princess Kawananakoa.
"Pearl Harbor Yacht Club was also a magnet for local and national celebrities in those heady days of the late 1920s and through the 1930s," Smith said. Hollywood stars Carole Lombard and "Thin Man" William Powell honeymooned at the club in July 1931.
In 1934, Duke Kahanamoku, who was also a yacht club member, competed with past-Commodore Harold Dillingham aboard the yacht Manuiwa to finish first in the TransPac Yacht race.
The next year Gen. George Patton, who was a lieutenant colonel at the time, sailed his boat "Arcturus" from California to Pearl Harbor and joined the club before reporting to an assignment at Fort Shafter.
Child movie-star Shirley Temple was made an honorary commodore during one of her visits to the islands in the 1930s.
A boat race was held on Nov. 23, 1941. Two weeks later, on Sunday, Dec. 7, the next scheduled race was never held.
With the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Navy seized most homes on the peninsula, and the club’s buildings were taken over by a Patrol Torpedo boat squadron as an R&R facility.
Some of the club’s members decided to build a temporary boathouse on the Ala Wai canal in Waikiki, giving birth to the new Waikiki Yacht Club around 1945.
The Pearl Harbor clubhouse was torn down after the war. Today, the foundation remains beneath a banyan tree while the old pier crumbles slowly into the waters of the Middle Loch. A massive hundred-year-old anchor of unknown origin and 60 feet of heavy chain guards what is left of the clubhouse.
The Navy uses the surrounding area for officers’ housing.
In the 1950s, the club was reorganized at Keehi Lagoon, where the reef runway is today. It moved back to Pearl Harbor in 1974 at the newly constructed Rainbow Bay Marina.
The club hosts races and regattas and offers classes, clinics and social events, Smith said.
"At $60 a year, membership is a bargain, given that this is one of the best places to sail in the world," he said.
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.
