The Four Seasons opened at Ka'ūpūlehu in 1996. Thirty years later, the resort you drive past on your way to Ke'olu has quietly finished the biggest culinary and wellness overhaul in its history, and the anniversary week from September 25 through October 2 is the first time all of it will be on the calendar at once.

If you live inside Hualalai, this matters in a specific way. The programming you are about to see is not a nostalgia lap. Almost every venue on the schedule has been rebuilt, renamed, or reopened within the last eighteen months. Fall 2026 is the debut season for the resort's new house style, dressed up as an anniversary.

The Week Itself

The commemorative programming runs eight days. Charlie Parker, the resort's Regional Vice President and General Manager, framed it around the community that stays year round rather than the guests who fly in for it, calling the residents and team "the heartbeat of the Resort." Practically, that means the events lean toward things members and residents can actually get into without a hotel key.

The centerpiece is the Hualalai Legacy Dinner on Saturday, September 26 at 'ULU. The executive chefs from Four Seasons Maui at Wailea, Four Seasons Oahu at Ko Olina, and Four Seasons Lanai will join the Hualalai kitchen for a multi-course seated dinner at the oceanfront counter, with Far Niente Wine Estates pouring Napa selections across the pairings. It is the only night this year all four Hawaii Four Seasons culinary teams will cook in the same room.

The rest of the week fills in around it. There are canoe paddle trips out of the Hualalai Canoe Club, pickleball and tennis tournaments, kids' mosaic classes, and poolside amenities specific to the anniversary. None of it is on the standard resort menu.

The through-line, if you are looking for one, is that Hualalai spent 2024 and 2025 tearing down its culinary program and rebuilding it. The anniversary is the ribbon.

Why This Fall Lands Differently

Consider what the dining page looked like two years ago against what it looks like now.

'ULU came back after an intensive transformation with Executive Chef Richard Polhemus running the kitchen and Chef de Cuisine Chris Damskey on the menu. Roughly 75 percent of the ingredients come from Hawaii Island, drawn from more than 160 local farms. The signature Hualalai Oysters are grown in on-site ponds by the resort's marine biologists, which is a sentence that did not exist in the previous menu.

NOIO sits on the second floor above 'ULU, a sushi lounge with a twelve-seat omakase counter facing the water. Sushi Chef Nuri Piccio runs the counter, and the beverage list carries more than thirteen sakes alongside its own craft cocktail program. The room did not exist before late 2024.

Miller & Lux Hualalai, Chef Tyler Florence's steakhouse concept, took both the 2025 'Ilima Award for Best Neighbor Island Restaurant and the 2025 Hale 'Aina Award for Best Hawai'i Island Restaurant. Two of the state's most watched restaurant awards, same year, same room.

Beach Tree closed for a refresh, ran a pop-up dinner service from May 4 through May 31, and returned to full lunch and dinner service on June 1, 2026. The room is still doing regional Italian with the handmade pastas and Hamakua mushroom pappardelle residents will remember, but the space around it is new.

Residents' Beach House and Hualalai Trading Company are the two that stayed as they were. Everything else got touched.

A Resident's Shortlist

If you are trying to figure out what actually deserves a spot on the September and October calendar, this is the short version.

The Paniolo Dinners are worth flagging separately. Florence and the Hualalai team designed the series to bridge his steakhouse work with Big Island ranching traditions, which for residents in Kohala and Waimea is a menu that reads as local rather than imported. They run through the anniversary period.

Outside the Anniversary Week

The Chef in Residence lineup for 2026 does not stop with the anniversary. Chef Edward Lee, the James Beard winner known for weaving Southern and Asian flavors, headlined February. Chef Andy Ricker, whose Pok Pok work put regional Northern Thai cuisine on the mainland map, returns July 25 through August 1 for a weeklong residency. Michael Hofstedt, the resort's Director of Food and Beverage, has said the remaining names will drop across the balance of the year.

On the wellness side, the Wellness Masters in Residence series is running in parallel at the Hualalai Spa and Sports Club. Pilates instructor Alana Mesica was in residence May 15 through May 18, and additional teachers are being announced through summer and fall. Classes are complimentary for resort guests and Hualalai Club members, and class sizes are capped to keep the format intimate.

Two logistical notes for members. The Hualalai Spa completed its aqua-thermal renovation at the end of 2025. The steam rooms, saunas, whirlpools, and cold plunges are all new build-out, so if you have been avoiding the spa since 2019 out of loyalty to the old room, the room is not the old room anymore. The 28,000-square-foot facility is still the only Forbes Four-Star spa on Hawai'i Island.

The other note is about the summer camp program. Christopher Robin Preschool ran a Hawaiian-culture toddler program from July 31 through August 3 for ages two to five, and Camp Manitou is back for tweens and teens with overnight trips that include Mauna Kea stargazing and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. If you have grandchildren visiting through fall, the camp waitlists for the anniversary week will move fast.

A Quieter Throughline

Here is the thing worth sitting with. Hualalai Resort broke ground in the ahupua'a of Ka'ūpūlehu, a coastal fishing village long before it was a residential resort, and the first Four Seasons room opened alongside the first Jack Nicklaus Signature course on Hawai'i Island in 1996. The first residential property sale closed the same year. By 2016, the community had sold 193 villas and 181 lots or homes.

Thirty years in, the residential side of Hualalai is effectively built out on its original footprint, which is why the resort's investment cycle has moved from new construction to reprogramming existing rooms. 'ULU refreshed. NOIO layered on top of it. Beach Tree closed and reopened. Miller & Lux dropped in. The spa's aqua-thermal spaces rebuilt. The bungalow suites added in 2021.

For a resident, the practical read is that the amenity set you bought into is being upgraded around you at a pace the sales side of the community cannot replicate. The anniversary week is a good excuse to actually walk the property with fresh eyes and see what has changed since the last time you looked.

If you have been ordering the same thing at Beach Tree for a decade, September is a reasonable month to sit at NOIO's omakase counter instead. If you have not been to the spa since the aqua-thermal reopening, that is a booking worth making before the anniversary week fills the calendar. And the Legacy Dinner on September 26 is genuinely a one-night event. Four island kitchens under one roof is not something the resort has done before, and there is no promise it will do it again.

The programming lives at press.fourseasons.com/hualalai for anyone who wants to see the release calendar as it updates, and reservations run through the resort's main line at 808-325-8000.

Thirty years is a long time to be inside the same gate. This fall is a good year to notice what has changed.

If you are weighing a move within Hualalai or considering how the resort's investment cycle shapes long-term value at Ka'ūpūlehu, Doreen Trudeau works quietly with residents and prospective owners across the Kohala Coast. Work with Doreen — Request a private consult.