White Sands

NAIOP Kukulu Hale Award Winner, Renovation Award - 2022

BDNY Gold Key Finalist - 2020

Designed by midcentury architect Edwin Bauer in 1957, the White Sands Hotel is one of the last remaining walk-up hotels in Waikiki. Opened within months of the famed International Market Place, the 94-room hotel employed several of Bauer’s signatures, including Japanese shoji screens and a courtyard pool that served as the social heart of the hotel. Recognizing its historical significance and artistic potential, the team advocated for the preservation of Bauer’s design intent, restoring the courtyard pool as a central, convivial gathering space and adding a circular, tiki-themed bar with playful, rope-swing seats and a hidden grotto and waterfall. Unable to restore Bauer’s original shoji screens, the design team took inspiration from byobu, Japanese folding screens, to create the rooms’ vibrant, floral headboards. Other design details, such as custom orange-and-white fringe pool umbrellas and bamboo handrails, draw unabashedly from Polynesian kitsch and the tiki craze of the 1950s and ’60s, helping the hotel to live on as a hidden oasis in the heart of Waikiki.