When it opened on Waikiki Beach in 1901, the white-columned Colonial Revival building designed by Oliver G. Traphagen was the first hotel on what would become one of the most densely developed shorelines on earth — a fact that gives the Moana Surfrider an authority no amount of subsequent construction can quite diminish. The symmetrical facade, with its hipped dormers, wraparound verandas, and central cupola flying the American flag, presents as a piece of early twentieth-century confidence in Hawaii's tourist future, and the building has been a registered Historic Landmark since 1972. The Banyan Wing and Tower additions brought the property to around 791 rooms across its three connected structures, but it is the original 1901 building — the Banyan Wing, named for the enormous tree shading its open-air terrace — that gives the hotel its character. The interiors navigate a familiar tension between historic fabric and contemporary resort expectation. Rooms in the original building carry white-painted louvered shutters and herringbone wood floors on the veranda level, wicker furniture and ceiling fans maintaining the Colonial register. The images reveal guest rooms in the tower addition fitted with upholstered headboards in teal and warm grey, textured wallcoverings, and rattan-detailed case goods — a Pacific-inflected palette that gestures toward the building's heritage without replicating it. The pool terrace, framed by tall coconut palms reflected in turquoise-lit water at dusk, shares that same quality: more atmosphere than decoration, earned rather than manufactured.

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