Paul Kurata, the first Asian president of Waialae Country Club and first chairman of the Hawaiian Open, now known as the Sony Open, died last month. He was 85.
"My dad, he broke a lot of barriers and made a lot of marks in Hawaii history," Kurata’s son, Colin, said last week.
Kurata owned Paul’s Jewelry in Ala Moana Center and opened the state’s first Tiffany & Co. stores. He is also known for being the first Asian president of a local Rotary club, his son said.
After volunteering to serve with Air Force special forces in Germany during the Korean War, the Honolulu native and Saint Louis School graduate used the GI Bill to attend the New York Conservatory of Music, Colin Kurata said.
Music was one of his great passions.
During the war, Kurata would take a train to Paris once or twice a month and wound up befriended by legendary European jazz musician Django Reinhardt, his son said.
"He’s got quite a collection of Django records because of that," he said. "Like he calls (it): He carried Django’s guitar."
Kurata met his wife, Eloise Yamashiro, a Honolulu native and Roosevelt High School graduate, while he was studying in New York and she was attending the Traphagen School of Design in the city. The two wed in 1950 before moving back to Honolulu. Eloise Kurata died in April 2010.
Shortly after returning to Honolulu, Paul Kurata had the chance to play at Waikiki’s Zebra Room alongside jazz pianist Dave Brubeck for two weeks in place of Brubeck’s fellow trio musician, Cal Tjader, his son recalled.
"That was kind of a highlight for him," Colin Kurata said. "But then I was born in ’51, and he had to get a real job, so he went to watchmaking school and jewelry school and basically started his Paul’s Jewelry."
Colin Kurata said his father’s first store opened around the same time and on the same block in Kaimuki as one of Sidney Kosasa’s first ABC stores, now ubiquitous in Waikiki.
"He started very humble in Kaimuki, (and) he got his big break at Ala Moana Center as one of the first tenants," he said.
When the lease for Paul Kurata’s jewelry store at Ala Moana Center was to expire around 1990, he went to New York and cut a deal with Tiffany & Co. to open the company’s first Hawaii location, his son said.
The company named him vice president in charge of development of the Pacific region, and he went on to open stores in Whaler’s Village on Maui, the Hilton Hawaiian Village on Oahu and the Sheraton Moana, Colin Kurata said.
While attending high school at Saint Louis, Kurata was an all-star center for the Interscholastic League of Honolulu for three years, his son said. He also played baseball and basketball and served as president of his senior class.
"He was a three-letter, three-sports man," Colin Kurata said. "If you go to the airport, you will see that there’s a picture of the ILH all-star team, 1945, I think, and you’ll see him in the middle as the center."
Colin Kurata said also appearing in the picture is Wally Yonamine, a former running back with the San Francisco 49ers, the first Asian-American to play professional football.
Besides Colin, Kurata is survived by another son, Lance M.; daughter Paula M. Kuespert; brothers Francis and Edwinn; and four grandchildren.
The family plans to hold a private memorial service Saturday.
