One day before the historic Coco Palms Resort on Kauai went up in flames on the Fourth of July, a post appeared on the resort’s Facebook page saying, "Best thing we could do is get 1,000 gallons of gas and burn it down."
The message appeared on the resort’s Facebook page at 12:56 p.m. Thursday. Less than 24 hours later, the resort was on fire.
Bob Jasper, site manager for the shuttered property, reported the Facebook post to police and fire investigators even as the Coco Palms continued to burn Friday.
"There’s no electricity down there," Jasper said Friday night. "So there can only be one cause, and that would be that somebody set it," he speculated. "It’s a real mess."
Kauai resident James Kimo Rosen told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that he wrote the post about the Coco Palms two weeks ago on someone else’s Facebook page. Rosen, a frequent contributor to the Garden Island newspaper, said he has never posted messages on Coco Palms’ Facebook page and did not know how his message appeared there the day before the fire.
"It’s a total coincidence," Rosen said. "Of course it’s a coincidence. I regret that people misinterpreted it. But it’s the consensus of the majority of the people on the island that it makes no sense to renovate the place and start from scratch. Everybody has said the best thing that could happen is to burn it down and start from scratch."
County spokeswoman Mary Daubert told the Star-Advertiser in an email, "We don’t condone any comments that encourage dangerous or illegal behavior."
Tyler Greene, manager of Coco Palms Hui LLC, which is seeking $125 million in financing to reopen the resort, said he had not heard of any similar sentiments expressed toward plans to reopen the Coco Palms.
Instead, Greene emphasized that no cause for the fire has been identified.
"We just really appreciate how quickly the Kauai Fire Department responded and how supportive Kauai’s been," Greene said. "We appreciate their help, and we want to get this hotel open."
Greene arrived at the property about three hours after the fire started around 11:30 a.m.
"It hit the front lobby and spread to the lagoon restaurant area," he said. "The fire was still going, so we didn’t see all of the affected areas."
When Jasper left the resort Friday night, it was still on fire.
The main lobby, dining room, main breezeway and lagoon terrace had all burned, and "embers were flying into the air and starting fires everywhere," Jasper said.
No injuries were reported, according to county officials.
Jasper also provides tours of the property. The day before the fire, he had about 10 eager fans who wanted to see the bungalow where Elvis Presley slept in 1961 while filming the wedding scene for the movie "Blue Hawaii."
It was also at the Coco Palms that Presley sang the now-iconic tune "The Hawaiian Wedding Song."
The hotel was built in 1953 on grounds that were once the home of Deborah Kapule Kekaiha‘akulou, Kauai’s last reigning queen.
The Coco Palms was the only Kauai hotel that did not reopen after suffering severe damage from Hurricane Iniki in 1992.
Even though it remained closed, Jasper said, "There’s just an enormous amount of interest in the property — and certainly a lot of Elvis fans."
The Coco Palms Kauai Facebook page has nearly 2,000 members whom Jasper calls "Coco Palms fanatics."
There have been several attempts to reopen the hotel over the years that have all failed.
Then in May, Coco Palms Hui LLC announced plans to buy the land and rebuild the resort as a Hyatt hotel in 2017.
David Phillips, 25, who lives on the street behind the resort, said he noticed smoke from his house and rode his bike to investigate.
The smoke continued to grow, and by the time Phillips arrived at the resort about a half-mile away, he saw "tons of flames" at the top of a building. He said the building was one of the larger structures on the resort, possibly the main building. Flames rose 4 to 5 feet above the roof, he said.
"The Fire Department, they came right on time," he said. "They got it down."
Phillips said the building was already heavily damaged from the hurricane and was supposed to be demolished in December.
"They just got a head start," he said.
