Grand Naniloa Hotel Hilo

The Naniloa name has anchored Hilo's bayfront since the late 1930s, when the original hotel opened on Banyan Drive along the row of memorial banyans. The property has been rebuilt, renamed, and rebranded repeatedly since — it currently operates as a DoubleTree by Hilton — and the file's research note stresses that the haunting account predates the present flag and implies nothing about the current operator.

What the Kahuna Research Group relays is a pair of anecdotes attached to the older Naniloa. The property is said to sit on or beside an old Hawaiian burial ground, and a night clerk at the neighboring country club allegedly watched figures moving through the Naniloa's hallways and grounds at hours when the building should have been still. A second thread has local fishermen reporting an Edwardian-era woman walking the area. KRG calls the story well known among Big Island residents; it is anecdote in the strictest sense — firsthand tellings, repeated, never corroborated. The file keeps it as reported experience from the hotel's earlier life, not a claim on the building as it stands.