We're here now. quite pleasantly surprised - beautiful, quiet, very uncrowded. full review later.
But can anyone provide info about what was here before? It's quite a large parcel. When and how did HGVC acquire all the land?
The Maui Lu resort was what was in that space in the past. I went to a luau there on my first visit to Maui with my parents and sister in 1968.
THE MAUI LU RESORT: Before the 1970's most visitors that came to the Hawaiian Islands came to Waikiki on Oahu.
The Maui Lu was the only resort on Maui's south shore, this resort was built by a Canadian logger Gordon Gibson and named after a yacht he sailed across the Pacific, it housed the snowbirds that would hide out in Maui for the winter.
Gordon Gibson Sr. was a prominent business leader and politician in British Columbia. He represented Lillooet from 1953 to 1956 and North Vancouver from 1960 to 1966 in
Gibson was a millionaire timber baron whose nickname was "Bull of the Woods" due to his loud lumberjack's voice. He was dismissed as a rough, hard-drinking logger who had made it rich, but was loved by many small loggers as being one of the few people to be interested in them over the interests of big business.
He was born James Gordon Gibson at Gold Bottom Creek near Dawson City, Yukon. His father was working a small mining claim while his mother was the camp cook. The claim failed and according to Gordon, he and his brother Clarke were taken out of the Yukon in an orange crate. In the 1920s, he and his brothers ran the Gibson Lumber and Shingle Company. During the Depression, they were active around Vancouver Island, Vancouver and Seattle. The Gibson brothers built a $4,000,000 sawmill business starting at Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
They had more than 40 boats working the Inside Passage including the five masted 2,000 ton bald headed schooner, the Malahat, and the five-masted schooner K.V. Kruse. The Gibson family also owned a radio station in North Vancouver and a whaling station at Coal Harbour. Gibson ended up with a 132-foot pleasure boat called the Norsal which he renamed the Maui Lu (a
At his resort, Gibson had a totem pole which he had arranged to fly out from Nootka Sound to Maui. At its base was an inscription written in concrete that claimed that it was the first totem pole to fly the Pacific. Gordon took his grandson Mark on the voyage from Vancouver to Maui to give him an experience where the eleven day cruise was full of excitement and adventure. Pete Lovick and Alistair Melander came along who looked after the engines that almost failed and looked after the course to get the Maui Lu to Hawaii.
Gordon Gibson Sr. was one of four MLAs who managed to get elected in the June 9, 1953 election when the Liberals received 23% of the vote. In the Lillooetriding, Gibson received 27.63% on the first count (in a preferential ballot) but on the third and final count edged out CCF rival Gordon Dowding with 51.93%. In 1967, Gordon Gibson was appointed a member of the Northwest Territories Council.
In 1971, he married Ms. Gertrude Schneider and together they ran a hotel on Maui with a restaurant that was very popular. Gordon Gibson died of lung cancer in 1986.
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Here is a link to the article talking about the taking down of the Maui Lu in order for Hilton to develop. The article is from 2015. It says the first phase was to open in 2017. I think they were a bit behind that estimated date.
The Maui Lu Resort is being torn down to make way for a 388-unit, time-share development on 28 acres in north Kihei. If all goes as scheduled, the $300 million Hilton Grand Vacations Timeshare Resort will open its first of three phases in 2017, said Will Beaton, president of Capbridge Pacific...
www.mauinews.com
