In late September, the Hōlei Sea Arch quietly collapsed into the ocean.
The site’s significance on a national and even international scale was borne out by the steady stream of coverage. In early October, the BBC made note of the natural collapse of a rock formation, as did the New York Times.
The coverage caught me off guard. I grew up in Hawai‘i (albeit as a suburban haole O‘ahu resident) and I had frankly never heard of the arch.
As the news of its collapse percolated, a walk at dusk out of Waikiki left me seeing a long familiar site in a novel manner. I’ve never been inside the War Memorial Natatorium, but I stared at its walls as a kid running on the adjacent beach. I remember peering through the locked gates.
The Natatorium’s decline has been a halting journey of years that have turned into decades. At this point, it looks as though the site will sit there, awaiting some form of collapse.
Politics aside, let’s pretend the Natatorium’s fate is already settled. Let’s pretend that we’ve already accepted that the Natatorium, like the Hōlei Sea Arch, is going to collapse.
What is the best course for its collapse? Monuments collapse as a result of decay, but the terms of decay are either deliberate (man-made) or natural (as was the case with the arch). Such decay is tragically beautiful when natural and fraught with controversy when left to human decision (or indecision).
The Natatorium’s Historical Saga
Would it be a terrible thing if the Natatorium collapsed into the ocean? If it did, I’d worry mainly about the coral. However, such collapse has been hastening as an inevitability for the last century.
In 1921, the Natatorium was authorized by the Territorial Legislature to commemorate the end of the Great War and honor the people of Hawai‘i who served in the conflict. $250,000 (approximately $4.7 million in 2026 dollars) in bonds were issued to finance the memorial’s construction. By 1927, it was complete.
In 1951, Territorial Governor Oren E. Long used his powers to set aside the Natatorium War Memorial site for the City and County of Honolulu’s Board of Public Parks and Recreation.
Within the first two decades of statehood, the site was administered as an aging structure for recreational use. The City and County of Honolulu knew that repairs needed to be made. Demolition was seriously considered, a sentiment reinforced via recommendations issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1972.
For now, the exact terms of demolition are tricky. One 1973 Hawai‘i Supreme Court decision suggested that the Natatorium could not be demolished unless the governor explicitly withdrew the lands from the control of the City and County of Honolulu. Unless such actions were taken, “it would appear that the imminent demolition of the Natatorium would be an illegal act.”
In 1979, the site was officially closed to the public due to health and safety concerns. As the Natatorium became more of a liability, plans to save the memorial emerged in fits and starts. The promise of a restored site became the excuse for any query as to whether it would be more worthwhile to demolish the site or reimagine it entirely.
With the Hōlei Sea Arch, no court could bar nature’s intent. Regardless of the site’s historical interest, no human law could prevent the waves from weakening the arch’s foundations. Will the same fate eventually befall the Natatorium?
A Sunk-Cost Debate
By 2009, then-Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s administration was ready to support the Natatorium’s demolition. As Hannemann’s successor (Peter Carlisle) began to make plans, Governor Neil Abercrombie looked poised to draft an executive order to formally bring the site back under state control.
However, such a decision could have left the st ate with greater liability for the site’s maintenance. Plans evolved, and then-Mayor Kirk Caldwell and Abercrombie were ready to collaborate on a project to demolish the old Natatorium and reinvent the site for the twenty-first century.
In 2019, projections for an open-circulation saltwater pool set the cost of restoration at more than $30 million. In September 2024, plans were underway for a public-private effort to raise money to restore the site. By August 28, 2025, Mayor Rick Blangiardi admitted publicly that efforts to restore the site and reopen it to the public were no longer feasible.
The sheer cost of bringing back a site primed for collapse is too high. For the Natatorium, the most practical course may be a fate akin to the Hōlei Sea Arch. Beyond human debates over historical significance, the State Register of Historic Places, and the letter of the law, perhaps its decay and eventual collapse into the ocean is the most natural course.
Human minds can debate. Money may be appropriated and designations awarded to sites. In the meantime, the sea will keep sending waves to the rocks.
Perhaps some historic sites, as a sign of respect to the greater span of existence on this earth, are better left in a state of gradual disappearance.
Perry Arrasmith can be reached at hello@perryarrasmith.com.
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