{"id":9695,"date":"2008-05-05T09:29:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-05T09:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/samoan-hotel-hooked-on-history-2\/"},"modified":"2008-05-05T09:29:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-05T09:29:00","slug":"samoan-hotel-hooked-on-history-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2008\/05\/samoan-hotel-hooked-on-history-2\/","title":{"rendered":"SAMOAN HOTEL HOOKED ON HISTORY"},"content":{"rendered":"

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david\u00a0\u00a0ellis <\/p>\n

YOU’VE got to admire\u00a0\u00a0a bloke who invests a million bucks or so in building a boutique hotel in\u00a0\u00a0Samoa, and then names it after a\u00a0\u00a0hooker.<\/p>\n

But hey, this is the South Pacific and Tom Drabble is a Kiwi. But he’s a Kiwi\u00a0\u00a0with business acumen, imagination \u2013 and a\u00a0\u00a0nice sense of humour to go with it. <\/p>\n

Tom’s place is in\u00a0\u00a0Pago Pago and is called Sadie Thompson Inn after\u00a0\u00a0the runaway Hawaii prostitute in Somerset Maugham’s\u00a0\u00a0classic short story Rain. <\/p>\n

In his yarn, based\u00a0\u00a0loosely on a trip he made by ship from Honolulu to Pago Pago, Maugham weaves a\u00a0\u00a0fascinating tale of the relationship between passengers sailing with him to\u00a0\u00a0Apia, and who are delayed by a tropical storm that forces them to hole-up in a\u00a0\u00a0sleazy Pago Pago rooming house. <\/p>\n

Amongst them are a\u00a0\u00a0dour Scottish doctor and his wife, a brassy American “Miss Sadie Thompson,” and\u00a0\u00a0a pious and hypocritical missionary of unknown nationality who ultimately\u00a0\u00a0slashes his throat after being seduced by Sadie \u2013 whose soul he insists he was\u00a0\u00a0attempting to save when explaining his prayer meetings in Sadie’s room to his\u00a0\u00a0equally pious wife (“we’ve not allowed the natives here to dance for eight\u00a0\u00a0years,” the wife boasts.) <\/p>\n

Maugham based Sadie\u00a0\u00a0on a young lady who galloped up the gangway of his ship at the very last minute\u00a0\u00a0in Honolulu, “a blonde runaway” he discovered had been forced out of the city’s\u00a0\u00a0then-notorious Iwelei redlight district during a police crackdown. <\/p>\n

Samoan historians\u00a0\u00a0have confirmed that Maugham’s ship, the Sonoma,\u00a0\u00a0arrived in Pago Pago in 1916, and police records\u00a0\u00a0reveal a single female passenger left the Sonoma\u00a0\u00a0to stay at “a waterfront boarding residence” before “opening a house of\u00a0\u00a0prostitution catering to U.S. sailors\u2026” <\/p>\n

Other records show\u00a0\u00a0that several attempts were made to deport Sadie, who finally returned\u00a0\u00a0broken-hearted to Honolulu after a failed Samoan romance.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

And although “Sadie\u00a0\u00a0Thompson” then disappeared without further trace, in the short time she lived in\u00a0\u00a0Pago Pago,\u00a0\u00a0thanks to Somerset Maugham she became one of the South Pacific’s great\u00a0\u00a0legends. <\/p>\n

Fast-forward now to\u00a0\u00a01964 when Tom Drabble arrives in Pago Pago from\u00a0\u00a0the little town of Te Puke south of Auckland, to work with a\u00a0\u00a0construction company.\u00a0\u00a0Tom falls in\u00a0\u00a0love with Samoa and a local lady, Ta’aloga, and\u00a0\u00a0when the construction job is finished, stays on. <\/p>\n

In 1989 he opens\u00a0\u00a0Sadie’s Bar and Restaurant on the Pago Pago\u00a0\u00a0waterfront, but after incurring substantial losses, buys out his partners and\u00a0\u00a0closes Sadie’s for a year, totally redeveloping it into his new Sadie Thompson\u00a0\u00a0Inn that opened in downtown Pago\u00a0\u00a0Pago in November 2003. <\/p>\n

Tom moves the bar\u00a0\u00a0and restaurant to the ground floor to attract more passing trade, and upstairs\u00a0\u00a0develops twelve deluxe hotel rooms overlooking the harbour, and two 1-bedroom\u00a0\u00a0apartments. <\/p>\n

He give all spacious\u00a0\u00a0rooms queen beds plus a sitting area with queen sleeper\/couch, internet\u00a0\u00a0connection, cable TV, DVD player, mini-fridge, hairdryer and tea and coffee\u00a0\u00a0facilities. <\/p>\n

Rooms are named Sadie Thompson, Rev. Davidson, Dr & Mrs McPhail etc from the book, and Miss Rita Hayworth and Ms Gloria Swanson\u00a0\u00a0after the actors\u2026 <\/p>\n

And dining in\u00a0\u00a0Sadie’s Restaurant is amongst the best in Pago Pago, particularly as Tom has a pipeline\u00a0\u00a0to freshest local seafoods and market garden crops. <\/p>\n

And if you ask Tom\u00a0\u00a0if it’s somewhat odd to name a classy, boutique hotel after a hooker, he’s quick\u00a0\u00a0to point out that Sadie is one of the South Pacific’s grandest legends \u2013 good\u00a0\u00a0enough for Somerset Maugham to immortalise her, and Hollywood to make three\u00a0\u00a0films based on her exploits. <\/p>\n

The first was a\u00a0\u00a0silent 1928 flick starring Gloria Swanson, the second starred Joan Crawford in\u00a0\u00a01932, and the third Rita Hayworth in 1953: as the Hayworth movie was made at a\u00a0\u00a0time of moral tub-thumping in America, Sadie had to be portrayed not as a\u00a0\u00a0prostitute, but as a nightclub singer “with a past,” while the morally corrupt\u00a0\u00a0missionary Alfred Davidson was re-characterised as an unaffiliated religious\u00a0\u00a0zealot so as not to offend any sections of the church. <\/p>\n

But it did offend\u00a0\u00a0one US Senator who described the film as “rotten, lewd, immoral\u2026 just a plain\u00a0\u00a0dirty picture.” <\/p>\n

With recommendations\u00a0\u00a0like that, no wonder Tom Grabble’s Sadie Thompson Inn is on a winner. <\/p>\n

(For details see travel agents\u00a0\u00a0or go onto www.sadieshotels.com<\/a>)
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.. <\/p>\n

IMAGE\u00a0\u00a0CAPTIONS: <\/p>\n

[] Living the\u00a0\u00a0legend: Sadie Thompson Inn, Pago Pago Samoa\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

[] Local dancers put\u00a0\u00a0on regular shows for guests <\/p>\n

[] Room at the inn \u2013\u00a0\u00a0spacious accommodation at Sadie Thompson Inn <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 –\u00a0\u00a0 Images:\u00a0\u00a0Sadie Thompson Inn <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

david\u00a0\u00a0ellis YOU’VE got to admire\u00a0\u00a0a bloke who invests a million bucks or so in building a boutique hotel in\u00a0\u00a0Samoa, and then names it after a\u00a0\u00a0hooker. But hey, this is the South Pacific and Tom Drabble is a Kiwi. But he’s a Kiwi\u00a0\u00a0with business acumen, imagination \u2013 and a\u00a0\u00a0nice sense of humour to go with it. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[376],"class_list":["post-9695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-david-ellis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}