Iolani Palace is a grand, late-19th-century Italianate compound on a 10-acre plot of manicured lawns in downtown Honolulu. It is the only royal palace in the United States, and was once the seat of the Hawaiian royal family, who ruled over the islands until a group of American-backed business men and sugar barons overthrew the monarchy in 1893. Today, it serves as a museum, and its opulent staterooms have been restored to their original glory with Hawaiian koa wood furniture and oil portraits of King Kalakaua and Queen Lili’uokalani (the kingdom’s last reigning monarch). It’s a fitting meeting place for the group of 30 or so women who congregate here each Saturday and sit around the large, rust-colored Formica tables in the palace’s stately neo-Classical Old Archives Building.

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