Fire called suspicious at Army's Cannon Club

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

A suspicious early morning fire yesterday destroyed part of the abandoned Fort Ruger Cannon Club, once the center of social life for a generation of Army officers, and might have been the final indignity to what was once an Island institution.

A fire yesterday destroyed about 30 percent of the Army's Fort Ruger Cannon Club on the slopes of Diamond Head. The club was closed in June 1997 after 52 years. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

The discovery by firefighters and investigators marked an ignoble footnote for a once-proud club on the slopes of Diamond Head that hosted weddings, birthdays and other key moments for thousands of Army officers from a different time.

"For people of our age that were World War II soldiers who then served in Korea and then served in Vietnam, it was a part of us," said retired Lt. Gen Tom Rienzi, 84, who lives in nearby Kahala. "This is very sad news."

Judi Bramlett, who is married to retired four-star Gen. David Bramlett, remembered fine dining with a gorgeous view of Waikiki, lit up by stars and night light.

"It was just incredible," Bramlett said. "It was so peaceful. Just the prettiest place in the whole world. You couldn't get any prettier, especially at sunset."

Fire officials declared yesterday's 3 a.m. fire as suspicious in origin because the building no longer has electricity. Firefighters had the blaze under control at 3:22 a.m. But it took until 5:41 a.m. to have it fully extinguished.

Police arrested a 48-year-old homeless man found on the property and released him pending further investigation.

The Army opened the Fort Ruger Cannon Club in the days when officers and enlisted men dined in separate social settings. The club saw its peak in the 1950s or perhaps 1960s, Rienzi said, before Fort Shafter opened its club and the Navy refurbished its own at Pearl Harbor.

Rienzi celebrated his 50th and 60th birthdays at the Cannon Club and enjoyed too many wedding anniversaries there to count.

"The military population, mostly retired, just stopped supporting it," Rienzi said. "When the new clubs opened, they attracted many of the service people — Navy, Marine and Air Force and Army — away from the Cannon Club. It really went downhill in the 1990s."

His wife, Clare, called the Cannon Club "the kind of place where people would go again and again."

Maj. Gen. Robert G.F. Lee, the state's adjutant general, was last in the Cannon Club more than a decade ago for a commissioning ceremony for University of Hawai'i graduates who were entering the Army as second lieutenants.

"But I recall lots of special occasions," Lee said. "The food was always good, but that view overlooking the city ..."

Over time, the military club system "became passe," Lee and others said yesterday. "We now have activity centers that are really open for enlisted and officers. They're not separated as they had been before."

The Army closed the Cannon Club in 1997 and turned over its 7.65 acres of land to the Department of Land and Natural Resources, which posted no trespassing signs in nearly every room.

The current plan is to demolish the club and build a facility for Kapi'olani Community College's Culinary Institute of the Pacific.

KCC officials are waiting for $150,000 in planning money from Gov. Linda Lingle's capital improvement budget, University of Hawai'i spokesman Paul Costello said last night.

With the damage the Cannon Club has suffered to both its foundation and its facade, Michelle Matson believes it's probably best to just level the building.

"I remember what a beautiful view it had," said Matson, a member of the Diamond Head Citizens Advisory Committee. "But it became vulnerable to vandalism and desecration. It just went downhill very quickly."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.