{"id":3228,"slug":"washington-place-honolulu-hawaii","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Washington Place is the house a sea captain built and a queen lost a kingdom in. Captain John Dominis started it in 1842 — the Italian-American merchant's Greek Revival mansion on Beretania Street, finished in 1847 after he'd been lost at sea, kept by his widow Mary who named it for George Washington with the king's permission. Lydia Pākī moved in as a bride in 1862 when she married Dominis's son; she became Queen Liliʻuokalani, and the house was hers for fifty-five years.","The kingdom fell around it. Liliʻuokalani ascended in 1891 and moved to ʻIolani Palace; when the monarchy was overthrown in January 1893 she came back to Washington Place — the private home that had been her refuge and became her place of internal exile. In 1895 she was arrested there for complicity in the counter-revolution and imprisoned in the palace she'd been deposed from. She returned to the house under arrest and lived her remaining years in it — the queen who had ruled Hawaii living as a private citizen in the house on Beretania Street.","The house kept the governors — the territorial government bought it in 1921, and it was the executive mansion for eighty years, from McCarthy through statehood. It's the only governor's residence in the country that was also a monarch's home — the Greek Revival building where the queen who lost the throne spent half her life, and where the governors who governed the state that replaced her kingdom lived in her rooms.","Washington Place is the archive's deposition file — the captain's house that became the queen's refuge, the home she was arrested in and confined to after the overthrow, the governor's mansion that was her house first, still standing in the capital she used to rule."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Washington Place is the archive's exiled-queen file — the Dominis house that was Queen Liliʻuokalani's home for fifty-five years, where she was arrested in 1895 and where she lived after the kingdom fell, the only governor's mansion in America that was a monarch's first.","A house that held a queen keeps her rooms — the file's suggestion being that Washington Place's haunting is Liliʻuokalani's presence: the queen who came home to the house that was hers, in the building that outlived the kingdom she lost."]}],"name":"Washington Place","aliases":[],"type":"SITE","type_label":"Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HAUNTED_PLACE","ROYAL"],"groups":["dark-history","hauntings","legends"],"desc":"The queen’s home—where she was arrested and where she died.","full_desc":"Washington Place is a site in Honolulu, Hawaii. The queen’s home—where she was arrested and where she died. Its signature presence is Liliʻuokalani — the figure the file’s accounts keep returning to. The dossier holds 2 reported claims, 1 legend, 1 documented fact and 1 named or described presence — documented record and retelling kept side by side. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Honolulu","county":null,"state":"Hawaii","postal":null,"region":"West","lat":21.324347,"lon":-157.84764,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":"Historic site / memorial","research_notes":"HI batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":3264,"type":"NAMED_GHOST_LEGEND","description":"The queen is reportedly seen. Liliʻuokalani is the name the reports keep returning to. Washington Place's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. It's a documented legend: the telling is real, the contents remain folklore. The report is preserved in sources like 'Washington Place'. The name travels further than the proof; the sightings keep renewing the lease.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":"Liliʻuokalani","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Washington Place","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Place","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]},{"id":3265,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported figures in the house. Washington Place's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. The reports are anecdotal — consistent enough to record, thin enough to stay unproven. The report is preserved in sources like 'Washington Place'. The figure remains the site's most-repeated sighting.","evidence":"ANECDOTAL","evidence_label":"Anecdotal","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Washington Place","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Place","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The 1847 house and the 1895 arrest are documented. Washington Place's past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer beneath whatever lore attaches. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The record appears in 'Washington Place'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1847","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Washington Place","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Place","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"The queen is reportedly seen. Washington Place's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. The account has a collector's pedigree — written down as legend, which is the most honest status it can hold. 'Washington Place' carries the account. Legends accrue where records go silent; this one filled the gap and stayed.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Washington Place","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Place","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[{"name":"Liliʻuokalani","claimed_identity":"Liliʻuokalani","verified":null,"summary":"The queen is reportedly seen. Liliʻuokalani is what the reports name it. Washington Place in Honolulu, Hawaii carries the report the way old places do — as part of its identity. A named spirit outlasts an anonymous one; the file's name is Liliʻuokalani. The reports keep the address on the map. The report keeps its place in the record.","behavior":"The queen is reportedly seen.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"Washington Place","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Place","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Site access varies; verify before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Washington Place","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Place","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Washington Place","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Place","desc":"Palace in Honolulu, Hawaii","extract":"Washington Place is a Greek Revival palace in the Hawaii Capital Historic District in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was where Queen Liliʻuokalani was arrested during the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Later it became the official residence of the governor of Hawaii. In 2007, it was designated as a National Historic Landmark. The current governor's residence was built in 2008 behind the historic residence and is located on the same grounds as Washington Place.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/Washington_Place%2C_O%E2%80%98ahu_%282024%29-L1004906.jpg/960px-Washington_Place%2C_O%E2%80%98ahu_%282024%29-L1004906.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":104,"lat":21.30881667,"lon":-157.85676667},"counts":{"claims":2,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":1,"sources":1}}