Hawai'i's rich history comes alive in tour walk

By Chris Oliver
Advertiser Staff Writer

'Iolani Palace, built in 1883, takes center stage during a walking tour of the Capitol District that explores Hawai'i's post-contact history. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser Walking tour Mo'olelo's half-day Historic Honolulu walking tours of the Capitol District are offered from 8:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., Wednesdays and Fridays. 'Ekahi tour meets at 'Iolani Palace, and includes the palace, state Capitol and Washington Place, with 12 additional sites of interest along the way. 'Elua tour adds Ali'iolani Hale to the above. Meet at the King Kamehameha I Statue. Cost is $78. Reservations: 845-4242 talkstorywalk.com.

Such slivers of information that reveal an era of Hawai'i's history during King David Kalakaua's reign are what prompted Fellezs to quit her job as a library technician, draw on her resources as an 'Iolani Palace docent and create Mo'olelo, a history-oriented walking tour of the Capitol District. The coats of arms are the kind of preserved detail she loves: They make history come alive.

Upstairs at the palace, in the room where Queen Lili'uokalani was imprisoned after her overthrow in 1893, a small birdcage sits on a dresser. The queen, who loved birds and had a small aviary built on palace grounds facing what is now the State Capitol, was confined for eight months and had with her two canaries for company. The story is both poignant and cheering. A queen who loved music at least had with her birds that sang.

"This is our mission ... to educate through stories," said Fellezs. "Not just the harsh, cold facts. Hawai'i's history is often presented as angry, but it's also beautiful, solemn and a sad one. But it's important to remember that those events were of that time. We're at a different point in our history now."

Fellezs, who goes by her Hawaiian middle name, identifies herself as a storyteller (a mo'olelo is a story) and takes groups on walking tours in the Capitol District that link downtown museums and buildings with the people who lived there. These are in half-day journeys through Hawai'i's history. The focus is the not-so-well-known, the humorous, heartwarming and tragic stories about the people and events that took place in this extraordinary square mile of Honolulu.

Mo'olelo works around the existing tours, giving 72 hours notice to museum docents. "We want to accommodate the museums and give the docents preference to guide our groups, Fellezs said. "However, 'Iolani Palace, for example, is so busy that Mo'olelo guides (who are all palace docents) will guide the tours."

Twenty-seven downtown buildings/museums are included in Mo'olelo's itinerary, with 'Iolani Palace taking center stage. Though most of the palace is closed for restoration through November, the sumptuous throne room and the lower-level galleries are open.

"David Kalakaua's staff enjoyed electricity long before their counterparts in the White House, Japan's Meiji Palace, or England's Buckingham Palace," Fellezs said. "The king was a visionary who saw even back then that power lines aesthetically needed to be underground."

The staircase in the entrance hall of 'Iolani Palace is probably the largest koa structure ever built; in the palace basement, however, fine blonde pine wood is fashioned throughout the kitchens and utility rooms. "Color-coded wood was a way of distinguishing the servants' quarters from those of royalty," Fellezs explained.

Next, she draws attention to the dumbwaiter, a new-fangled contraption in 1880s Hawai'i and yet another insight into a king whose love of science, inventions and foreign travel helped move Hawai'i into the modern world during his decade on the throne.

Creating tour hard work

Creating Mo'olelo has taken Fellezs six months of intensive research and fact-checking (preceded by seven years as an 'Iolani Palace docent).

Though she created the tour, Fellezs credits the late Jim Bartels for the inspiration; he was the historian and researcher who lovingly restored Washington Place and 'Iolani Palace to their former grandeur. Bartels, a passionate student of Hawai'i's late monarchy period, died in April.

"Jim and (storyteller and walk guide) Glen Grant (who also died this year), were an enormous source of material," Fellezs said. "Jim's advice was always, 'Do not interpret the facts on your own, that is up to the listener. You must present the facts with aloha.' "

For guides such as Fellezs, facts with aloha are the essence of a successful tour. "Our factual information must be legitimate, so it's cross-referenced with many sources, including texts, archives, books, the Hawaiian Historical Society and, of course, other docents."

Opposite the palace at One Capitol Way is what was once the first Royal Hawaiian Hotel, then the YMCA's Armed Forces Building during World War II, then restored by developer Chris Hemmeter and eventually turned into the State Art Museum.

During the late 19th century, when foreign dignitaries such as the princes Augustus and Phillipe of Saxe-Coburg, and the traveling public made their way to Hawai'i, the hotel's owner, E. Herbert, offered rooms "with board for $2.50 and without board for $1 per night."

Visitors were well advised to pick the meals option because Herbert employed legendary chef Robert Von Oehlhaffen, described in The Pacific Commercial Advertiser (The Honolulu Advertiser's predecessor) as "a well-known caterer and master of the cuisine in Honolulu" at the hotel.

Von Oehlhaffen, a German baron, described also as "the king's butler," was one of Honolulu's more colorful characters and catered Kalakaua's balls and soirees as well as his foreign trips before opening the Kohala Restaurant at Halawa on the Big Island.

Von Oehlhaffen was famous for his dishes inspired by August Escoffier, the godfather of French cuisine: the dinner menu for June 25, 1873, at the hotel comprised six European and Asian courses, and as many fine wines, desserts, coffee and "segars."

Out of place on Mainland

Fellezs, whose mother is Hawaiian and father is from Michigan, was born on O'ahu but grew up south of Detroit, where as a child she recalled feeling out of step with Mainland life ("I used to take my mother to show-and-tell and she would play the 'ukulele"). She returned to the Islands in 1975.

Her family's brush with Hawaiian royalty came when Fellezs' grandmother, as a small child, met Queen Lili'uokalani, who rescued her from a scolding by her aunt for not curtsying properly. This whisper of history is one Fellezs returns to frequently. But becoming a docent came about by chance.

In 1996, she visited 'Iolani Palace with a friend: "The docent made us laugh, cry and think on that tour, but most of all, helped us stand in the queen's shoes," Fellezs said. "It was heart-wrenching and a humbling experience to be a Hawaiian and not know this history."

From then on, she knew she wanted to be involved in learning and sharing Hawai'i's history. Fellezs admits that tours are always challenging: "You don't know who will be on the tour, what nationality or what their views or interests are. Every (tour) is different," she said.

She says the real challenge is how to convey the information.

"Hawai'i's history, especially of the palace, is shocking, and we have to present it in a way that people can accept it and still leave the tour feeling OK. ... That's why it's good to end the tour at Washington Place which, despite tragic events for its own characters, is uplifting and very much of the present time and the future," she said.

Washington Place was built in 1842 by Capt. John Dominis, who was lost at sea en route to China. His widow, Mary, turned the mansion into a 12-room boarding house, but each night burned a lantern at the gate for her husband should he return.

"Here was a strong woman," Fellezs said, "... someone who decided to stay despite her loss, who could look to the future, not just her own but that of Hawai'i, and whose son married another great woman, Lili'uokalani, in 1862."

Lili'uokalani died at Washington Place in 1917, but the mansion's stories continued, from housing a dozen governors over the years to hosting thousands of visitors, from the queen of England to the emperor of Japan to baseball legend Babe Ruth.

"The storyteller is the key, a trained, certified docent equipped with knowledge and eager to pass it on," Fellezs said.Ê"We have a passion to share, educate and preserve our beautiful buildings and museums encasing that which makes this possible.

"But the best part is, it's what we love to do."