On an 8,000-acre peninsula of pricey hotels, vacation condominiums and multimillion-dollar homes, the resort community of Princeville on Kaua‘i’s picture-perfect North Shore is the site of an escalating feud.
And the community — a mix of affluent residents, investment property owners and multinational corporations — is divided over what to do about it.
On one side, homeowners whose properties buffer an abandoned golf course advocate for open space protections in the neighborhood, with some filing lawsuits to thwart new development. On the other is Starwood Capital Group, a $115 billion global investment company with a proposal to construct luxury homes on the golf course it closed five years ago.
There are allegations that Starwood has used its outsized voting power in neighborhood elections to install community association board members sympathetic to its interests — and oust those with differing views. Others cast the standoff as a private fight in which a small subset of homeowners who want to preserve their pretty backyard views have tried to hijack the community association’s financial resources to fund mounting legal bills. Neighborhood board meetings have been volatile to the point that a key staff member who helps keep the community association running has quit.
The conflict has shattered the peace in a scenic, resort-style neighborhood that serves as the economic engine for tourism on the island’s laid-back North Shore. There are campaign mailers, partisan websites and position papers dedicated to the issue. AI-generated caricatures — which some residents say amount to harassment — dominate the virtual debate on the social media site Nextdoor.
“I actually called the police,” said Rose Krebs, a Princeville at Hanalei Community Association board member.
The online comment that prompted her June 18 call to police read, “Ace is a place where Starwood sycophants go to die.” Ace Hodgin, a doctor and former community association board president, is Krebs’ husband.
Bernard Markowicz, a civil engineer who shares his views on neighborhood matters on the website FriendsofPrinceville.com, said he’s worried that the golf course controversy has stolen the community association’s focus away from the nuts and bolts of neighborhood business.
“I’m well-aware that we are somewhat of an entitled community and many of us drive fancy foreign cars and things like that,” Markowicz said. “But I think what happens here has a repercussion on the economy of the whole island. Princeville brings tourists to the hotels or the vacation rentals and it brings dollars to the economy of Kaua‘i. To me that’s what’s really at stake. You have an economic engine here … that’s not being properly managed.”
Fed Up And Taking Action
The controversy is now the focus of overlapping lawsuits.
Starwood lost a court fight in July 2025 waged by two Princeville residents whose homes overlook the golf course at the center of the dispute. Fifth Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe ruled in favor of plaintiffs Lorraine Mull and Fran White, who argued that Starwood’s development plan would go against Princeville’s original incorporation papers, which envisioned a neighborhood centered around open space.
The plaintiffs also argued in the suit that developing the golf course could release potentially dangerous anthrax spores into the community. The decomposed remains of hundreds of cattle killed during a series of anthrax outbreaks more than a century ago are buried under Woods Course. The litigation, which unearthed this nearly forgotten piece of Princeville history, alleged that if the anthrax-tainted soil is disturbed, it could release spores capable of sickening humans and killing animals.
Starwood, which is appealing the verdict, has disputed the existence of anthrax at the site. Last year in a statement to reporters, the company characterized Mull and White’s claims of a possible public health threat as “self-serving fear mongering.” The company did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Now the giant investment firm faces a new legal challenge from a Princeville couple who allege deceptive efforts by Starwood to gain control of a community association board to advance its agenda to convert the Woods Course into an oasis of multimillion-dollar homes.
The plaintiffs Shen and Emma Beard Schulz, who own a $1.9 million house on the Woods Course and two Princeville condos, sued Starwood not just on their own behalf, but in the name of a proposed class of hundreds of their neighbors. The litigation, filed on Sept. 24, also names as defendants the Princeville at Hanalei Community Association and several current or former members of the community association’s board of directors.
In addition to the proposed class-action suit, the Schulzes filed a legal complaint in August against the title insurance company involved in the purchase of their Princeville home for leaving out key facts about the property. Chicago Title Insurance Company spokesman Sean Neary declined to comment on pending litigation.
It turns out that the presence of an anthrax burial site was disclosed by the developer of the Princeville community in a 1975 public offering statement filed with the Hawai‘i Real Estate Commission, which mandated that it be given to new homebuyers, Beard Schulz said in a phone interview. None of that information was disclosed to her and her husband, a Malibu real estate agent, when they bought the property four years ago, she said.
“It’s kind of an Erin Brockovich story,” Beard Schulz said. “I am very upset with people who don’t take it serious.”
A History Of Discord
The dispute began in 2018 when Princeville’s flagship hotel — a vacation destination for celebrities Kourtney Kardashian and Addison Rae — was sold to the Miami-based developer Starwood Capital Group for $225 million. After an extensive multiyear renovation, the hotel reopened in 2023 as the uber-luxe 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay, where the cheapest rooms can cost upward of $1,200 per night.
Starwood originally sought to develop a portion of the Princeville Makai Golf Club, which it acquired as part of the hotel purchase, into a luxury “glamping” resort. Two Princeville residents — Mull and White — sued to stop it.
When the Kaua‘i County Council passed an open space ordinance that would have prohibited the project, Starwood pitched a new proposal to build luxury homes and condos on the nine-hole Woods Course, which it stopped operating in 2021. There is another 27-hole course still active in the Princeville community.
The focus of litigation brought by Mull and White also changed, centering on the alleged risks of disturbing anthrax-tainted soil.
“Has it hijacked the community? Well, it certainly has inflamed a lot of people,” Mull said of the impact the litigation has had on the community. “But is it just a silly neighborhood dispute? No. It’s got bigger ramifications than that. It’s kind of a Gordian knot.”
At the heart of the dispute is a 55-year non-development dedication for the Princeville Makai Golf Club’s defunct Woods Golf Course.
The non-development dedication expired in February. But a judge ruled in July 2025 that the dedication must be read in conjunction with the Princeville community’s covenants, conditions and restrictions, a document commonly known as CC&Rs, which modify the dedication in this important way: Upon expiration of the nondevelopment provision, an automatic five-year extension kicks in. The provision renews in perpetuity in five-year increments unless 75% of the owners vote otherwise, the judge said.
Starwood is appealing this ruling.
“It’s kind of like the people versus a corporation,” Dale Sands, a former mayor of a Chicago suburb who sits on the community association board, said. “It’s really kind of tearing the community apart.”
While decisions about the future of the Woods Course wind through the courts, Starwood is pursuing a separate resort expansion project on a coastal bluff with a proposed two-story residential building, parking garage and event pavilion at the 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay.
In May, the Kaua‘i Planning Commission paused decision-making on the proposal and granted four community groups represented by Earthjustice the opportunity to submit evidence to help inform the commission’s decision on whether the project should move forward. The community groups — Mālama Kua‘āina, Hanalei-Wainiha-Hā‘ena Community Association, Hui Ho‘omalu i Ka ‘Āina and Conservation Council for Hawai‘i — raised concerns about the project’s close proximity to an eroding cliff edge.
‘Most People Here Are Nice’
The dispute has ensnared The Princeville at Hanalei Community Association, with three of five members on its board of directors facing expulsion from the board.
Krebs — a retired health care consultant and self-described grandmother with a Bernedoodle designer dog — won a board seat in 2024 with critical backing from Starwood Capital Group, which is allocated two votes for each of its 252 hotel rooms. In campaign materials, Krebs described her love for Princeville’s natural beauty while declaring that “most people here are nice.”
After an encounter with angry neighbors outside the Aloha Room of the Princeville Neighborhood Center, where board meetings take place, Krebs said she no longer attends meetings in person, opting instead to participate over Zoom.
“There’s really multiple attacks on me by many people, and I don’t even know how to describe the feelings,” Krebs said. “It’s hurt. It’s anger. It’s definitely fear.”
Now she faces a petition for removal from the board. Krebs asserts that the petition, with more than 500 signatories put forth by Beard Schulz, is a maneuver by people in the anti-Starwood camp who fault her for remaining neutral in an increasingly nasty fight where nearly everyone in the affluent neighborhood has seemingly felt pressure to choose a side.
Shortly after the petition to remove Krebs from the board surfaced, Starwood sponsored its own petition to remove the board president and vice president. The community association allows for the removal of board members without cause by the vote of a simple majority.
No date has been set for the recall votes. Annual board elections take place Saturday with two of five board seats open.
Meanwhile, the community association is without a daily supervisor following the recent resignation of General Manager Bryan Allen.
The board has been largely hamstrung by conflicts of interest. President Patti Thiele and Vice President Dale Sands have recused themselves from matters involving Starwood on the heels of the company’s bid to oust them from the board. Treasurer Isaiah Francis, a Starwood employee who does not live on Kauaʻi, is also barred from participating in Starwood-related business.
The board can’t even come out with a united position on whether Starwood should have to cut the grass on the Woods Course, Princeville resident Bill Schilling, 81, said.
“What’s happened is I think there have been a few people just pushing their own way and causing lots of disruption for the rest of us, and the result is the board is getting a lot of split votes on a continuous basis and not getting very much done,” Schilling said.
After Starwood lost the lawsuit filed by Mull and White last summer, neighbors say the company stopped mowing the golf course at the center of the dispute.
In May, a judge denied Starwood’s request to resume ground-disturbing work on the property but underscored that routine landscaping, including lawn mowing, would be allowed.
Still, the course remains overgrown, with some residents arguing it’s become a fire hazard.
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This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.