Last week, I wrote about the New Otani Kaimana Beach Hotel. The founders of the hotel were Shigeo and Akino Shigenaga. They have an interesting story that I thought I’d focus on this week.

Through Barbara Dunn and John Barker at the Hawaiian Historical Society, I was able to connect with their sons, Paul and Fred.

"Our parents were isseis, or first-generation immigrants, from Hiroshima, Japan," Paul says. "Shigeo worked as a sugar plantation laborer on the Big Island. In 1919 he moved to Honolulu where he worked as a kitchen helper, fishmonger and a cook.

"Around 1927 he met and married our mother, Akino Okamoto. They had a total of six children: Henry, Raymond, Warren, Helen, Frederick and me, Paul."

"His hard work finally paid off when he and our mother purchased a property on College Walk in Honolulu and opened a restaurant and bar called the Venice Cafe," Fred says.

Paul remembered that "as you go up the stairs to the restaurant, there was a painting of Venice with gondolas, and I think my father named it because he thought the Nuuanu Stream looked like the canals of Venice."

College Walk, by the way, was named for Saint Louis College (now School), which was there from 1881 until moving to Kaimuki in 1928.

Business was so successful at the Venice Cafe that they also purchased a fee-simple three-quarter-acre property on Wyllie Street in Nuuanu, mauka of Maemae Elementary School, Fred says.

There were many trees, and a natural spring on the right side of the property. A small stream ran through the makai side, connecting to other streams on properties below.

However, their success ended when World War II began. Because of his affiliation and involvement in many Japanese activities, Shigeo was detained at several internment camps until the war was over. During the years of internment, Akino ran the business.

After he returned to Honolulu from the internment camp, he continued running the Venice Cafe until the early 1950s. Shigeo then moved the family to the beach and, in 1954, began the Hotel Kaimana.

One of Shigeo’s favorite pastimes was cooking, and he decided to open an authentic Japanese teahouse and garden on the property. "The teahouse was built by Japanese carpenters with tatami floors and was named Miyako," Paul continues.

"Many celebrities such as Frank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth enjoyed the atmosphere and fine Japanese cuisine cooked by a chef from Japan with our father and mother assisting."

The Japanese restaurant on the second floor of the New Otani Kaimana Beach Hotel today is named Miyako.

When the hotel’s nine-story tower opened in 1964, more than 1,000 guests attended the grand opening, Fred told me.

"This is the happiest moment in my life," said Shigeo. "My biggest dream has been completed."

"This magnificent hotel will be the central meeting place of the East and West and will play a big role in the furtherance of goodwill between the U.S. and Japan," the Hawaii Hochi said in its coverage.

"In September 1947, when trade was reopened between the U.S. and Japan, Shigeo was invited to Japan with the first group of buyers from Hawaii," Paul says. "During this trip he became the first foreign resident after World War II to receive the honor of a personal meeting with Emperor Hirohito at the Imperial Palace.

"In 1954 he was the first foreign resident to receive the Distinguished Black Ribbon Medal (from) the Japanese government after World War II. He was nominated by his Hawaii colleagues to receive the Emperor’s Order of the Rising Sun award, but he turned it down because he always felt that the person receiving the award should be highly educated and he was not." Charles Reed Bishop and Daniel Inouye were both given this award.

Shigeo Shigenaga died in 1984, and Akino in 1996.

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.