Hotelier Roy C. Kelley was the mastermind of an empire in Waikiki that was loved by budget-minded tourists and hated by planners, who said he had started a concrete jungle that lacked aesthetics.
He has been called the Henry Ford of Hawai'i tourism, an entrepreneur who made the Islands accessible to the average traveler. In the process, he reshaped the Waikiki skyline. Kelley once said he saw nothing unattractive about row upon row of buildings "marching to the sea."
Kelley took a single hotel — the Islander Hotel, which he built in 1947 — and created a hotel chain that was the largest in the state when he died 50 years later. Sales exceeded $340 million a year. Outrigger Hotels & Resorts is still the largest operator of rooms in Hawai'i.
Kelley was born in Redlands, Calif., in 1905, the son of a contractor.
A graduate of the University of Southern California's School of Architecture, Kelley came to Hawai'i on Black Friday — Sept. 13, 1929 — to work for a local architecture firm. Among his creations: the immigration station, the Central Fire Station and the main building of the old Halekulani Hotel.
He built apartments in the 1930s, and when World War II began, he moved his family to California. At the same, he began to go blind because of cataracts. An operation in 1943 restored some sight to one eye and he soon returned to the Islands.
When he built the Islander Hotel in 1947, Kelley introduced the lowest room rates ever in Hawai'i: $6.50 and $7 a night. Hawai'i had few hotels at the time, but all of them were considered luxury accommodations.
His chain grew, but when jet travel began in 1959, Kelley's empire soared.
Kelley's success came from hard work. He was a hands-on businessman who wasn't afraid to do a menial job, especially in the early years, if it meant a smoother-running hotel. He regularly walked through his properties and never worked in an office, preferring instead to be near the front desk where he could focus on customers.
Kelley, an entrepreneur who would seal deals with a handshake, died in 1997. He was 91.
