When Greg Warner was first asked to redesign Hawai‘i Island’s tsunami-battered Kona Village resort, he said no. His firm, the San Francisco–based Walker Warner, had no experience designing resorts, and he worried about the logistics and manpower required to lead a hospitality project with 150 guest rooms, multiple restaurants, and a spa. But resort owner Kennedy Wilson, a global real estate investment company led by Bill McMorrow, asked Warner a second time.
“He said, ‘I’m only going to ask you once again,’” Warner recalled. “And I decided to do it. Of course, I had to come back and convince the partners.”
