Longtime Beat of Hawaii reader Carl wrote us again this week asking for an update on Coco Palms. He’s asked several times, and after June’s enormous $431 million financing announcement, we understand why. But while the resort’s reopening keeps getting pushed further into the future, some of the people who made Coco Palms unforgettable are no longer here to ever see it happen. Larry Rivera died in 2023, and his wife Gloria died this August, both without seeing the resort reopen.
Hurricane Iniki closed the resort in September 1992, and it’s been 34 years since then. Larry entertained generations of guests there, while Gloria was an essential part of his performances and helped build his musical career. Bob Jasper, who devoted years to preserving the resort’s history and showing visitors through its abandoned grounds, was another of its most persistent advocates. He recently passed away and administered the Coco Palms Facebook group, which boasts over 10K members.
The people who kept Coco Palms alive.
To countless visitors, Larry Rivera was Coco Palms incarnate. He started working there in 1951 and eventually became the resort’s best-known entertainer, performing his Love and Aloha Show and sharing stories of Kauai, its music, and its people. Long after the hotel closed, he continued welcoming visitors and speaking about his hopes for its restoration.
When we reported Larry’s passing in January 2023, readers responded with memories spanning decades. One remembered meeting him on a honeymoon in 1985 and then returning to Coco Palms years later, where Larry appeared during a tour, ukulele in hand. Others recalled the torch-lighting ceremonies, his music, and the warmth he brought to their visits.
Gloria was far more than just Larry’s wife, standing beside a famous performer. According to her family’s obituary, she handled lighting and sound for Larry’s shows, made leis, and helped promote and distribute his recordings through Coco Palms Records. Together they raised six children while building a family entertainment tradition that became part of the resort and the island’s identity.
Gloria died at her Wailua home on August 18, 2026, at age 91, three and a half years after Larry. Her passing adds another chapter to the history of a resort that remains closed long after the performers who helped make it famous are gone.
Bob Jasper played a different but equally memorable role. After Iniki, when most people saw an abandoned hotel, Jasper continued bringing visitors through the grounds and telling its stories. As the former owner of Hawaii Movie Tours and a longtime caretaker, he helped preserve a connection to Coco Palms after the guests and entertainers were gone.
In testimony before the Kauai County Council in 2013, Jasper explained that his site-management role was unpaid and that he had escorted prospective developers through the property for years. He described his personal passion for Coco Palms, which grew from showing visitors around the resort to trying to help bring it back.
One BOH reader, Karen, remembered both Larry’s hula shows and a private tour with Bob long after Hurricane Iniki. Her recollection captured just how the resort remained meaningful to people who hadn’t been able to stay there for decades.
The resort is still awaiting its next chapter.
The redevelopment now has substantial financing, something previous plans lacked. Reef Capital says below-grade construction is underway, but the new hotel buildings have not begun rising, and the anticipated opening remains 2028.
That’s two years later than the 2026 opening originally promoted with the Kimpton announcement. We reported the abandoned deadline in April, and the developer’s current website acknowledges that construction delays pushed the timetable back. The 2028 date remains a target, not a confirmed opening plan.
A new legal development has also emerged. On August 13, Hawaii’s Supreme Court agreed to review part of the challenge Friends of Mahaulepu brought over the redevelopment permits. The court postponed oral arguments scheduled for October 6 and has not yet ruled on the underlying issues. Accepting the appeal does not itself invalidate the permits or halt planned construction.
For those asking what has actually changed since June, the developer reports continued underground work, but no new hotel structures are standing. The money and the planned resort are real parts of the current redevelopment plans, but neither has produced a place for guests to check in or a date for when they can.
Larry Rivera once expressed a wish that now feels particularly poignant. As we recalled in our 2023 tribute, he hoped to live long enough to see Coco Palms operating again, saying he wanted to see the place in full swing before walking away and waving goodbye.
He never got that chance. After 34 years, Coco Palms is still waiting for the reopening that Larry, Gloria, Bob, and so many others worked to keep alive in people’s memories.
Did you ever take a tour with Bob Jasper, see Larry and Gloria perform, or stay at Coco Palms before Iniki? We would love to hear your memories of the people who kept this resort alive. Please share them in the comments below.
By Rob and Jeff, Beat of Hawaii.
Some of Hawaii’s most meaningful parts are the ones visitors walk right past without knowing they are there. We’ve spent nearly 20 years finding them firsthand for BOH as full-time Hawaii residents reporting on travel, culture, and island life, and telling you what they mean for your trip. Join us →
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Karma says deed Coco Palms back to the Hawaiians, to develop as they see fit. It could still be a resort, as source of income for the Native Hawaiian. This was once the cultural center of Kaua’i, it should be more than a money grab for developers. I lived near the property for 10 years and moved away when big construction was supposed to start in 2005.
I remember the lighting of the tiki torch ceremony and the ambiance of it all quite well. I loved the big shell in the lobby and all of the grounds with the water canals and the thatched roof church on the property as well . It was and is one of my fondest memories of my lifetime being there and experiencing all the beauty of the aloha spirit there. I dearly love Coco Palms and hope I live to see it reopen.
My wife Bonnie and I stayed at the Coco Palms in 1971. I was on R&R from
Saigon, where I was flying out of Tan Son Nhut AB. My wife flew from SFO on a brand new United 747 to HNL and we met up and flew to LIH.
What a beautiful place it was and our memories have been with us all these years. It was the best, and we recall it frequently, as we did in January as we stayed near the grounds as we drove by.
We now average 5 trips to the islands per year, but always remember our first trip there. We enjoy going to a different island each trip, but have our favorites.
Thanks for the memories.
My husband and I stayed at the CoCo Palms shortly after it opened in August of 1969. For us it was an unimaginably luxurious few days to a couple of kids recently graduated from college, struggling making ends meet with a baby on the way. Life was orange crates end tables and hand me down couches, but this was luxury courtesy of my in-laws. I can still easily conjure up the scene having dinner or umbrella drinks beside the lagoon, listening to the music and watching the torch lighters run along the side of the lagoon lighting the tiki torches while the “Royal Family” cruised slowly by on the “royal barge.” A little hinky in todays so-sophisticated world but, heck, it was 1970 and we thought it was pretty cool stuff. I fell in love with Hawaii on that spot and our family has returned many times since. I still have a photo of our room’s giant conch bathroom sink in our photo album. I can send you a copy if you would like. Good memories.
I am old enough to have toured with Grace Guslander…..had a State Dinner on Royal China when United Airlines began service….my first trip to coco palms was in 1958
just the one wing….and the trip to the Fern Grotto was in a 4 passenger motor boat……
Those were the fantastic times….and true Garden Isle and land of Aloha
Craig M
To Rob and Jeff thank you very much for the Coco Palms update. Your articles are the best for people interested in Hawaii.
As glorious as the days of old were most people who have to drive by the old coco palms sight do Not want a hotel back on that corner for many reasons. A cultural center reflecting the true history, the Hawaiian history, of that sight. It’s the age old story of people in suits on the mainland trying to figure out how to make a buck and the locals wishes be damned. Same ol song of the Hawaiian islands and colonization.
Eō!
I never stayed at the Coco Palms Resort because my first trip to Kauai wasn’t until 2000. I did, however, take Bob Jasper’s tours several years in a row when I started taking annual trips to Kauai and enjoyed his descriptions of the history of the resort. I was surprised when, at the request of his family, he moved to Orlando briefly. He wasn’t gone too long before he returned to his beloved Kauai. He and Larry worked together to keep the soul of the Coco Palms Resort alive. RIP!
I’m probably 30 years younger than the median age in the Coco Palms Facebook group but growing up in Northern California, Hawaii, specifically Kauai, is where we spent countless family vacations throughout my childhood and even into adulthood; my parents still go annually to this day. I have memories of visiting Coco Palms and having dinner while watching the iconic torch lighting ceremony. As far as I know, we never actually stayed there, and Iniki hit the island when I was 9 years old. But ever since, the crumbling, abandoned ruins of Coco Palms always fascinated me (I sadly never made it to one of Bob’s tours before demolition), and I’ve been closely following the saga ever since. I would love to see it open again one day, in some form, but I’m not overly optimistic, despite some of the unprecedented milestones this latest developer has achieved.
Aloha BOH – I took a Kauai Movie Tours tour that stopped at Coco Palms in May 2000. It was surreal to be on the property nearly 8 years after Iniki. As I recall, the focus was the lagoon and palm grove. It was like visiting a crumbling ghost town.
Spent 3 wonderful nights at the Coco Palms on our Honeymoon in 1970. Longed to return, but never made it. Always loved Kauai as our favorite island of the 3 we visited in 1970 & finally bought a Timeshare at the Marriott on Kalapaki Beach in 1998! Always breaks our heart when we drive by the location on our way up to Kapaa & Hanalei as we spend a couple of weeks in Kauai every November. We’ll never forget our room on the Lagoon with the Clamshell Sink in our living area! I’m 82 & also hope to live long enough to see our favorite spot in Hawaii reopen! Thanks for the memories & wonderful article! Regards , Ed R
I live in Japan most of the year, where tipping isn’t practiced. I get better overall service there than I do in the Islands. Go figure.
Which has exactly what to do with the Coco Palms?