Elizabeth Holmes’ Bizarre Family Island Once Hosted Zebras, Hollywood A‑Listers and Now Needs $20M Fix (Video)

“He expanded it 16 acres,” the narrator explains, "by dumping sand over the surrounding reef. He also built a bowling alley, a saltwater lagoon that lit up at night, a private zoo with zebras, camels, tigers, monkeys, and a baby elephant from Germany.

“Amelia Earhart, John Wayne, Shirley Temple, and the Rockefellers were all guests of the island. And in 1964, it was ever used as the ‘shipwreck island’ in the original Gilligan’s Island trailer. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, the island was taken over for military use. And Holmes died in 1944 at just 47 years old, paranoid and struggling from alcoholism.”

It's giving Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood vibes.

Here for a good time, not a long time, Christian Holmes II might’ve said.

Today, according to local news, Coconut Island is closed due to a bridge collapse, and in need of a $20 million repair. “Hawaii County now says even a temporary fix is two years away, and full reconstruction won’t even begin until 2029,” Beat of Hawaii reports.

But the Hawai’i Institute of Marine Biology from the the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa uses the special island for research. As they put it:

“The Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) is a preeminent marine science institute located on Moku o Lo‘e (Coconut Island), surrounded by living coral reef. We leverage our unique Hawai‘i hub and year-round access to tropical ecosystems to transform local research into global ocean solutions. Across diverse labs, our ‘ohana (family) of over 200 faculty, staff, students, and volunteers studies diverse marine life and the vital connection from ridge to reef.”

Glad something good came out of it after its somewhat sordid history.