Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison, who purchased 98% of the island of Lanai in the summer of 2012, has acquired the 11-room Hotel Lanai through his Pulama Lanai company.
“We decided late last year that it was time for us to move on to new adventures,” one of the hotel’s owners, Mary Charles, told Travel Weekly. “We felt having the historic Hotel Lanai in the [Pulama Lanai] portfolio was the best option for the community and so finalized an agreement with them for the sale.”
The 90-year-old Hotel Lanai was built by James Dole as a high-end lodging complex for Dole Pineapple executives during the height of the island’s plantation era.
Mary Charles reopened the property, along with Tom Kiely and nephew Mike Charles, in 2010 after an extensive refurbishment, offering Lanai visitors a more affordable accommodation price point than the destination’s only other hotels: the Four Seasons Resort Lanai at Manele Bay and the Four Seasons Resort Lanai the Lodge at Koele, both also now owned by Ellison.
Aqua Hotels & Resorts had worked with the former Hotel Lanai ownership group to book rooms at the property and provide marketing.
Charles did not disclose the amount Pulama Lanai paid for the Hotel Lanai.