The New Otani Kaimana Beach Hotel is celebrating two anniversaries this year. The first is the 60th anniversary of its founding in 1954 by Shigeo and Akino Shigenaga. The second is the 50th anniversary of its current, nine-story building, erected 10 years later.

However, its history goes back much further. In 1893, the Sans Souci hotel was opened at the foot of Diamond Head by George Lycurgus, who had operated the Volcano House on the Big Island. Sans Souci means "without worry or care," and was the name of Frederick the Great’s summer palace in Germany.

In September of that year, Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson stayed at the hotel for five weeks and rested under the shade of the famous hau tree that still exists today.

Stevenson became friends with King Kalakaua and his niece Princess Kaiulani. He wrote: "If anyone desires such old-fashioned things as lovely scenery, quiet, pure air, clean sea water, good food and heavenly sunsets hung out before their eyes over the Pacific and the distant hills of Waianae, I recommend him cordially to the Sans Souci."

Mr. T.A. Simpson, the hotel manager, said, "… sometimes, during the heat of the afternoon, Stevenson would entertain those with whom he had grown familiar, seated upon the grass at Sans Souci, under the shade of a great umbrellalike tree (the banyan), where the guests had the benefit of the light trades that come over the mountain range beyond.

"Here they would lie in a group around the novelist, and talk on any subject that came to mind; and at no other time was Stevenson found more entertaining … "

Sculptor Allen Hutchinson said the hotel had no pretensions of luxury. He described its main room, a huge space for both lounging and dining, as a ramshackle wooden structure. "The guests occupied small bungalows, thatched roof affairs about 10-by-12, the bed being the principal article of furniture."

When Queen Liliuokalani was overthrown, Lycurgus opened the doors of the hotel as a meeting place for counterrevolutionists, who, in 1895, led an attempt to restore the queen to her throne, says former Kaimana Beach Hotel General Manager Stephen Boyle.

Four days later, they were defeated. Lycurgus and more than 100 supporters were imprisoned.

The McInerny family built a residence on the property in 1903. The McInernys owned several retail stores in Hawaii for more than 150 years. The McInerny residence was a tasteful Victorian home with an ocean lanai and wood railings under the hau tree, Boyle says.

Shigeo and Akino Shigenaga leased the property from the McInerny Family Foundation in the late 1940s and built 12 units of one-bedroom hotel-apartments with kitchenettes fronting Kalakaua Avenue in 1954, their son, Paul, tells me. Its name was the Hotel Kaimana.

"The original McInerny home fronting the beach was converted to a lobby and dining room," Paul continues.

"As for the name of the hotel, Shigeo asked our neighbor on Wyllie Street, Judge Desha Beamer, and he came up with the name Kaimana, which in the Hawaiian language means power of the ocean. It is also the Hawaiian transcription of the English word "diamond."

Shigeo intended to serve a small but growing group of Japanese who were visiting Hawaii on business. He was successful and soon opened another 12 units.

Paul says his father traveled frequently to Japan and 47 of his business friends there wanted to invest in the hotel business, including Fuji Bank, Japan Electric, Nippon Oil and Mitsubishi.

Shigenaga and his investors erected the nine-story, 125-room hotel tower in 1964. In 1976, the New Otani Hotel chain bought the Hotel Kaimana and renamed it the New Otani Kaimana Beach Hotel.

Yonetaro Otani was the founder of that chain. Otani opened his first hotel in 1964 in Tokyo. He had gone to Tokyo as a sumo wrestler, but he wasn’t particularly successful. Instead, he entered the steel business and established the Otani Heavy Industry Company.

The Japanese government asked him to build a hotel for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and that led to the New Otani Tokyo Hotel. There are now 15 New Otani hotels in Japan, one in Hawaii and one in Beijing. The founder’s grandson, Kazuhiko Otani, runs the chain today.

Current General Manager J.P. Cercillieux says that following World War II, when Japan was recovering, the concept of "newness" was important, hence the use of the word "New" in their name.

The New Otani Kaimana is a boutique "jewel of a hotel." Two-thirds of its guests have stayed there before. They like the location of the hotel, an arms-length, but walking distance to Waikiki, the beach, the park and Diamond Head.

The hotel’s Imperial banquet room is a replica of one at the Nijo Castle in Kyoto, Japan. The inside is decorated in Asian motifs and has a similar ambience.

But for many of us, a humbler dining establishment is fondly remembered: The Kaimana Hamburger Stand, just Ewa of the Hau Tree restaurant.

The stand was owned by the hotel and was a "gold mine," says sales and marketing manager Lisa Reasoner.

Speaking for myself, I used to go to Kaimana Beach a lot, and one of the major reasons was their hamburgers. The scent of them grilling would waft through the air and entice me until I could resist no longer. Apparently, the neighbors who smelled it every day, complained and the city made them close in 1985.

In 1989, the "Friends of the Kaimana Burger Stand" erected a plaque on the site of its "untimely demise."

While I may no longer be dining at the hamburger stand, my wife and I love to dine at sunset at the Hau Tree restaurant. The hotel remains a special place and I can feel it from the moment I walk in.

I’ll write more about Shigeo and Akino Shigenaga in the next few weeks. There are many interesting aspects of their story.

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.