Everyone in this fight has lawyers, except the owners. Until now.

The cover-up, step by step

Owners are standing up to Starwood, and to the people who helped it from inside our Association. Here is what we found, what our claims say, and how it cost every owner, in plain words.

These are our claims. No court has ruled on them, and the companies and people named have not answered them. “Court” marks findings from the 2025 Mull & White ruling.

1. 1917–1919
   The burial ground. An anthrax outbreak on the Princeville Ranch killed at least 300 cattle (between 300 and 500, according to multiple witnesses) and an unknown number of horses and mules. After a full trial, the court found that “there are anthrax burial sites on the Woods Course.” [Court ¶¶93, 190]
2. 1972–1979
   The protections. The 1972 Dedication limited the 27-hole golf course to “golf course and ancillary recreational uses.” The 1975 Public Offering Statement disclosed cattle burial sites from the 1917 epidemic, marked with silver oak trees. In 1979, the Department of Health said such sites “shall be left undisturbed during grading or land clearing operations.”
3. 2018
   Starwood buys the golf course. Its golf company, SOF-XI Kauai PV Golf, took title under a deed that says the land is subject to the Open Space Dedication.
4. 2019–2020
   Working our Board. From 2019, our claims say, Starwood “unduly influenced” the PHCA Board to neutralize community resistance, get around the Dedication, and keep the 1975 disclosure hidden. In February 2020, Sam George was appointed to the Board, not elected. As President, he negotiated with Starwood over our open space without a member vote.
5. 2020
   Starwood was warned. In August 2020, an email to Starwood’s Jason Cruce, relaying a meeting with the golf course’s designer, said the silver oaks marking the graves “remain and should not be touched” and warned: “Anthrax is still potentially dangerous if dug up; stay away from the area.” Starwood’s own December 2020 cultural study recorded the same history. [trial testimony, June 25, 2025]
6. 2021
   Starwood kept it quiet. “Despite being informed of the anthrax by Starwood’s consultants in August 2020,” the court found, “Starwood did nothing.” At first it “did not even attach” its own study of the anthrax history to its County permit application, “even though it was required to do so,” while it pursued a 50-tent luxury glamping complex over Holes 1–3 of the Woods Course. In August 2021 it abandoned the Woods Course for golf. [Court ¶¶70, 114]
7. 2021–2022
   Our Association’s leaders side with Starwood. Lorraine Mull and Frances White sued to stop the glamping. PHCA President Sam George filed a declaration saying that if “an acceptable community benefits package can be negotiated,” then “it is possible the Board will support the Defendant’s plans.” After the County banned campgrounds there, Starwood withdrew its application, then tried to get the case thrown out and asked the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court to order it dismissed. The PHCA, represented by Doug Chin, asked to file a brief there, which Mull and White’s lawyers opposed as a brief “in support of” Starwood. The Supreme Court turned Starwood down in October 2022. [court filings]
8. 2022–2024
   Taking the seats. Starwood “weaponized concentrated commercial voting blocks” to put Ace Hodgin (2022), Starwood employee Isaiah Francis (2023) and Rose Krebs (2024) on our Board.
9. 2024
   Testing the burial ground. In fall 2024, Starwood took 188 soil samples from the Woods Course. The court found that 14 were “suspect,” meaning they “had positive results for at least some of the B. anthracis markers,” and that Starwood’s own experts “could not say anthrax is not in the soil.” [Court ¶¶128, 130]
10. 2025–2026
    Still trying. In 2025 the court ruled for Mull and White. It barred “any sort of use of the burdened land that is not a golf course and ancillary recreational uses, including a residential housing development or any sort of overnight accommodations,” and any ground-disturbing work “without appropriate testing, oversight, and court approval.” Starwood has appealed. In 2026 it asked the court to approve ground-disturbing work under a “safety plan”; the court declined on May 19, 2026, and Starwood has asked it to reconsider. [Judgment ¶3]

What our claims say Starwood and the PHCA did

Who we investigated: their ties to Starwood and the 1 Hotel

We looked into how closely these five people have worked with Starwood and its 1 Hotel. Here is what we found in public records, court filings and their own words. You decide. See how they connect on the Connection Map →

And it hasn’t stopped. A petition now seeks to remove our President, Patti Thiele, and Vice President, Dale Sands. The PHCA has not said who filed it, but the community believes it is Starwood’s: its 1 Hotel is the only owner with two votes per door. See that vote →

How the cover-up hurt every owner

• Buyers were misled. “New homeowners were misled into believing the open green space was permanently secured, while being denied access to the restrictive covenant terms.”
• Silence propped up prices. By keeping up “the illusion of a safe, premium master-planned golf community while concealing a deadly latent biohazard,” our claims say, the defendants artificially inflated property values and association fees.
• We deserved the choice. Every buyer deserved to know about the anthrax. Most of us can live with it, as long as it stays buried forever under open space that is cared for. What no one would knowingly buy into is anthrax and the threat of a development that could dig it up. Had we known about both, most of us would never have bought here.
• A promise would protect us all. If Starwood promised never to develop the Woods because of the anthrax, we would happily buy here again, and our homes would keep their value.
• Now values are falling. With the anthrax now public and Starwood still fighting to develop, our claims say owners’ homes have suffered “an immediate, sharp, and catastrophic devaluation.”
• And more. The loss of protected open space, community disruption, legal costs, and a threat to everyone’s physical safety.