The bay is located at . The area to the north was covered by an 1859 lava flow from
Mauna Loa. It was the site of an ancient temple (
heiau) and settlement of
ancient Hawaii destroyed by the 1859 eruption. Brown was a grandson of
native Hawaiian historian and judge
John Papa ʻĪʻī. His mother was
Irene Kahalelaukoa ʻĪʻī (1869–1922) and his father was Charles Augustus Brown (born 1856). He was born in
Honolulu September 16, 1892 and attended
Punahou School and
Fessenden School in
West Newton, Massachusetts. The lands that John ʻĪʻī had been awarded were put into a trust called the John ʻĪʻī Estate, Limited. After his parents divorced in 1898 his mother remarried, which was the subject of a lawsuit due to ambiguity in the original will. During
World War I Brown served as an ambulance driver in
France. He married Stephanie Wichman in Honolulu on January 30, 1919. He became an involved in several sports, including baseball, swimming, tennis, polo, and golf. He won the Hawaiian Amateur golf championship nine times. In 1924 he set a course record at the
Old Course at St Andrews and in 1927 he set the course record at
Pebble Beach Golf Links. He purchased on Keawaiki Bay from the territory between 1926 and 1931 as the houses were constructed. Buildings include a main house with two bedrooms, two guest houses, a caretaker house, and other structures. They were built from local lava rock. Swimmer
Duke Kahanamoku spent his
honeymoon in a guest house and helped design swimming pools on the property.
Helen Desha Beamer composed a song about Keawaiki. In 1932 Brown also bought a small cottage built for
James Frank Woods and Eva Parker at Kalahuipuaʻa about to the north. The cottage is preserved as a museum in the Mauna Lani resort. The resort named its golf course for Brown. The
Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail runs past the property. The complex was abandoned during
World War II in 1941, and Keawaiki was sold to nephew Zadoc White Brown (1917–2006). Zadoc Brown founded the first
mutual fund in Hawaii. Several animal pens near the beach were destroyed in the April 1, 1946
tsunami. Until 1974 the only access to the bay was by boat or on foot. A private unpaved road now leads from the
Hawaii Belt Road that runs inland of the bay. Brown died in 1976 in
Pebble Beach, California. He was called "Mr. Golf of Hawaiʻi" when inducted into the Hawaii Sports Hall of fame. ==References==