So I dropped in his office. It was around the corner from the Dohrmann Store on Bethel Street, which was on the first floor of the McCandless Building, 925 Bethel Street. The Commercial Club, the long established business club, was upstairs on the 4th and 5th floors. The businesses that made up the Commercial Club included nearly every business in downtown Honolulu, realtors, attorneys, jewelers, doctors, druggists. I served as president about the same time I started the Crouching Lion.

Dohrmann Hotel Supply Co. 1st floor, McCandless Bldg. Hotel & Bethel, Honolulu

When I met with Mr. Faithfull, I told him I had been going around the island and noticed this beautiful building, and in my opinion it would make a beautiful spot for a round-the-island stopover restaurant.

In our business (hotel and restaurant supplies), every potential spot is something to investigate. This was just an empty, beautiful building, furnished, on about two and a half acres, but nobody around. I just couldn't get over how beautiful it was and what a potential spot it would be.

It (Kaaawa-Kahana) was a pretty well deserted area.

The house had been built by…it doesn't come to me now. It was built by a mason. Mr Faithfull had bought the place from them.

At first Faithfull wasn't interested. "Oh, I couldn't even consider it," he said. "That's my country home. And I wouldn't want a restaurant there."

When I went by his office and talked to him about it, he was very, very pleasant and a real nice man. I'd never met him before. But we parted with a feeling there was no hope for putting in a restaurant.

But a couple of weeks later, I got a telephone call. It was Mr. Faithful. He said, "I've been thinking about our conversation and I'd like to give it a little deeper thought."

So we did, and we ended up with him suggesting that we open it as a restaurant. He would make the building available. I would pay the taxes while the restaurant was operating. There would be no rent and we would just have it as sort of a joint venture. It was a handshake deal, and we set it up.

The "crouching lion", the mountain, that was already widely recognized as the crouching lion. So we just added the name "Lodge". [Although popularly called the crouching lion, the rock formation was known to Hawaiians as the figure of Kauhi, the stone guardian of the cliffs running from Kaaawa to Kahana.] Setting up the facility wasn't a great deal of work. We had a gas range and the gas tanks had to be outside, and we had to pull the gas through the walls, and water for drainage.

The Crouching Lion's original business license

To put in a plumbing line from the outside to the kitchen area took about two days to drill through the blue rock the building is made of to get the pipe through. That was one of the pitfalls.

But other than that, it wasn't very difficult. We did put a hood in the kitchen and an exhaust, work table and sinks. It wasn't an easy installation but it was a good fun installation.

We set up a nice little kitchen. We put in tables and chairs for four people each, total seating about 60 in the living room and dining room, with a huge fireplace on one end, and it created an atmosphere that we weren't very accustomed to in Hawaii. It made a very very nice setting.

We arranged to get a chef who was from Ireland, Joe Sheridan, and we had menus set up. We had Aggie Kellett, one of the women from the [Waikiki] Surf Club, come in as hostess and manager. So we had the chef in the kitchen, a gal in the dining room to greet the guests, and it was set up pretty much as a chafing dish-type food service from the cart to the table with fancy chafing dishes, ladles, and things of that nature.

We served luncheon and dinners. It was all specialty food. The dinners were all candle lit tables with tablecloths.

Joe Sheridan, the first chef, was quite colorful with his white coat and his high crown chef's hat working the dining room as well as the kitchen.

Carl Reber, who was manager of the Commercial Club, asked if there was any possible chance of him getting work out there. When Joe decided he was going to leave, Carl was given the job and he seemed to enjoy it.

It was outstanding, but not the point where there were a lot of people (chuckle).

We were told we were about 10 years too soon because round the island travel was not too heavy, and the attempt to get the cars to stop wasn't too successful.

We put in a big neon sign on the roadway, Crouching Lion Lodge, which has since been removed.

The grounds were kind of extensive and needed maintenance and upkeep. Mr Faithful had a little cottage on the Kaneohe side to the left of the building, and a fellow by the name of Lorenzo was his caretaker. I believe he had a couple of boys who also assisted him. They lived in their own facilities on the property.

Mr. Faithfull's garages were on the right, with bathroom facilities upstairs. This part was later converted to novelty sales.

Ian Lind with sister, Bonnie, in front of the new Crouching Lion Lodge. Click for more.

We had to put openings for the entrance and exit, so cars would come in on one side and exit on the other. Parking was on the grassy area.

It was fun. I had to go out on Friday nights usually....I would pick up the groceries and things and take them out Friday night. I would usually spend Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday, and get back home in time to get to work on Monday.

I used to enjoy Sunday morning breakfast there, it was just so relaxed. For hours, you would sit there, with no traffic on the road. Really.

We had two rooms upstairs that we rented out for family groups and people who wanted to come to the country. Aggie took care of that. [A newspaper ad offers the rooms for $7 single, $10 double.]

The guest rooms were upstairs, a mezzanine overlooking the dining room. One guest room on the right, another on the left.

But it wasn't very popular for that purpose.

There was never swimming in front, all rocks and coral. But I had visualized it as an opportunity for the future, as a residence, you know.

We ran ads in the newspapers. That was about the only advertising we did. There weren't many other places to eat. There were restaurants in Kaneohe on one side, just small places. Around the Haleiwa side, there wasn't too much going on at that time.

click for larger view

We had a number of good parties, several luaus, and business luncheons.

Several of the larger affairs were quite nice. I recall the Mercury Business Club had a dinner meeting one evening, and that was well attended.

We had a big, white baby grand piano alongside the fireplace. On special occasions, we had a piano player come in, and there was lots of singing and music, and the big fireplace going when the weather was nice, and it was a very cozy spot. The potential was tremendous.

But we didn't have liquor. And after the first few months we applied for a liquor permit, and it was refused by the Liquor Commission on the strength of the complaints of the people in the neighborhood.

When they canvassed the neighborhood, everyone had already been contacted by each other and had agreed they were all going to vote against it. Of seven residents within 500 feet, four were opposed. But the fact that the chairman of the Liquor Commission lived next door and was a major complainant, we were advised that there our application would be disapproved.

The major complaint was they didn't want drunks in their neighborhood. And the place was not conducive to that type of atmosphere. We felt it was something that would be appreciated by the guests going to that type of dining spot. They were allowed to bring their own bottles, but that didn't help as far as return for the business was concerned.

Mr Faithfull wanted me to buy it from him, the whole kit and caboodle, house and property, for $85,000 at the time. I didn't know enough about financing property at the time to get involved. I had other duties as manager of Dorhmann Hotel Supply Co., and with my other activities I just didn't have the hours in the day to put full time into it.

It was kind of a break even thing. But there was no margin there to make it worthwhile.

We operated for about a year and a half, I believe it was, and I finally decided it wasn't worth my time as a business to maintain it. So we agreed it would probably be a good idea to close it down and he would try to see what he could do on his own.

The improvements were all left for him. Several months passed, maybe a year, and he made the place available to one of the larger restaurant operations. They operated it and applied for a liquor license.

What Mr. Faithful did, he subdivided his acreage, and made enough parcels to gain enough votes from the people within the 500 foot radius to override those who objected before. And as a result they were able to get a liquor license.

Once they had liquor on the premises the traffic picked up. It has operated almost continuously since then, although under a series of owners.

[Recorded in Honolulu, Hawaii, on March 11, 2005]