The IOLANI PALACE is located in Honolulu on the island of Oahu and is the only royal palace in the United States.  It was the official residence of the last ruling monarchs of the Kingdom of Hawaii - King Kalakaua and his sister Queen Liliuokalani.

But there had been a previous Iolani Palace at this location.  The name for the previous palace was "Hale Ali'l.  In 1863 Kamehameha V changed the name of the palace to Iolani Palace (bird of Heaven) to honor his deceasded brother Kamehameha IV.  When King Kalakaua came to the throne in 1874, that old palace was a coral block building in great disrepair, so he had it demolished and commissioned a new Iolani Palace, which was modeled after the grand palaces he had seen during a trip to Europe.

Begun in 1879, the Palace we know today was designed in a style referred to as "American Florentine", a unique style characterized by features of Italian Renaissance architecture with elements of Hawaiian architecture.  Iolani Palace is the only building in the world constructed in the American Florentine style.  Three different  architects - Thomas J. Baker, Charles J. Wall, and Isaac Moore, worked on the palace - with Baker's designs being the ones used primarily for the building.   The cornerstone was laid December 31, 1879.  The large palace was built of brick with concrete facing and had four corner towers and two center towers with double lanais (roofed, open sided verandas) encircling the building on the first and second floors.  It was completed in 1882 and cost over $340,000 - a vast fortune at that time.

Although Kalakaua had already ruled for 9 years, he held a huge formal European-style coronation ceremony in 1883.  The coronation pavilion was later moved to the southwest corner of the palace grounds and converted to a bandstand for the Royal Hawaiian Band.

When the palace opened, it was considered one of the finest palaces in the world.  And it had indoor plumbing, electric lighting, and an early telephone, all before the White House did.

After the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown in 1893, the palace was used as the capitol for the various Hawaiian governments.  In 1895, Queen Lili'uokalan had been forced to give up her throne.  She lived at her personal residence, Washington Place, where she was arrested and t ried for aiding the short-lived attempt to restore the monarchy.  At her trial she was fined $5000 and sentenced to five years hard labor.  The sentence was later commuted but she was restricted to one bedroom on the second floor of the palace and was allowed one lady-in-waiting during the day, but no visitors.  During this period she spent her time making a beautiful quilt.  Today the quilt is on on display in the bedroom where she was confined.

During the palace's tenure as the capitol, it was not maintained, and by the  1960's had fallen into complete disrepair.  In  1969 the State Government moved to a newly constructed capitol building across from the Palace.  After 87 years of continuous use, Iolani Palace ceased to be the capitol of the Hawaiian Islands.

In the 1970s, the Friends of Iolani Palace oversaw an extensive restoration of the building.  Completed in 1978, the building had been meticulously restored to its former grander.  After this restoration, Iolani Palace was opened to the public as a museum.  Daily tours are now available and the wooden floors are so grand that visitors are required to wear felt "booties" over their shoes when they are in the building.

Today Iolani Palace is a National Historic Landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places and it is one of 3 places in Hawaii where the flag of Hawaii can officially fly alone without the American flag.