
The second hotel built at Kaanapali, the Sheraton Maui was Sheraton's fifth hotel in Hawaii. Its initial building was referred to as “the hotel built upside down”: guests took a winding drive up the back of the prominent cliff Puu Kekaa, the western-most tip of Maui; at the top they entered the hotel's circular open-air lobby, sited at the cliff's summit, and from there they descended by elevator to their rooms and the beach, eight stories below. The once stunningly modern hotel, with its rounded lanai, today stands tucked into a corner of the property overshadowed by subsequent buildings, which have expanded the hotel to 510 rooms. The most recent structures, built in 1997, house the lobby and main restaurants and follow a Hawaiian style with their large thatchlike roofs.