ALMOST straight through the center of the Earth from Hawaii, straight down under us, so to speak, is an extravaganza resort casino called the Lost City. It is of interest to us because it shows how global things are today and how rewards go to those who recognize and understand that. Creations of a
Honolulu design firmThe Lost City -- right from the initial imagining of the earthquake that created it -- is the product of the Honolulu design firm named WAT&G for the initials of its founder, George Wimberly, and his successors, Gerald Allison, Gregory Tong and today's chairman, Donald Goo.
It is at Sun City, South Africa, a short drive from the border of Botswana, Hawaii's antipode or opposite pole.
Pete Wimberly died in 1995, but I knew him from just a year or two after he founded the firm in 1945. He decided early to specialize in resort architecture and brought a wonderful imagination to the task. His early partners added the practical elements.
His places were exotic. They were anchored in the architecture of the region -- but not so much so that he didn't realize first-class bathrooms and makeup areas were important to make comebackers out of women visitors.
His concepts captured the flavor of the land, more or less, but not so much so that Wimberly was above bringing in giant shells from Fiji to serve as washbowls at the then-sensational Coco Palms Resort on Kauai.
He somewhat reluctantly took on massive high-rise projects like the Sheraton-Waikiki and the Hyatt-Waikiki but broke the Sheraton design into a pinwheel and the Hyatt into two towers to soften the massiveness. He probably rationalized that if massive structures were going to be built anyway his firm might make them more attractive than someone else could.
The firm's reputation spread. Soon it was getting invitations from resort developers all around the Pacific, and then all around the world. Right now it is replacing Wimberly's first South Pacific project in Tahiti.
WAT&G at age 52, an exceptionally old age for design firms, is rated the biggest leisure/hospitality design firm in the world by World Architecture magazine. It is also the largest architectural firm in Hawaii. It has 85 employees in its new downtown Honolulu office and 245 worldwide with branches in Newport Beach, Calif., London and Singapore. A Florida office may be added.
WAT&G architects go to a site and spend days on the property with the developers to work up a rough conceptual design. Only then do they head back to their drafting boards. They travel 250,000 miles a month to oversee their projects. They always work with local partners.
Gerald Allison, who left Honolulu to head the Newport office, had just about the happiest assignment an architect could have. His clients in South Africa allowed him to dream up a legend for a Lost City and then build to the dream.
What was built in three years has underground caverns, the world's largest man-made waterfall, a lake with mechanically generated surf, columns that stand askew and walkways that are split by cracks. Around artificial ruins are an artificial jungle with more than a million plants and trees and, of course, a golf course.
WAT&G has expanded to do time-share projects in Korea, golf resorts in Malaysia, mixed-use projects in Jakarta, serviced apartments throughout Southeast Asia, hotels in India and Sri Lanka, casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City and retail centers here in Hawaii.
It is designing hotel towers for what is planned to be the world's largest cruise ship, the first to be built and registered in America in nearly 50 years. Florida-based America World City will cost $1 billion, be a quarter of a mile long and carry up to 6,200 passengers. An unnamed client has WAT&G designing an underwater resort. NASA invited WAT&G to discuss resorts in orbit.
As Hawaii looks for niches to fit itself into the global economy, the success of WAT&G tells us it is possible to find them.