Roy Robins strolls the grounds of the Royal Hawaiian three days a week knowing that his grandmother — composer Mary Pula'a Robins — walked the same paths while writing the "Royal Hawaiian Hotel" song for the 1927 opening.

The song is still a hula standard learned by halau students. It's lovely in Hawaiian and in English and speaks in glowing terms of the hotel's setting and charms:

"You are festive to see, O Royal Hawaiian hotel, beauty gleaming, true beauty."

It describes "velvet beds we sleep upon, smooth, soft and good."

Roy Robins, who was born in 1953, first worked at the hotel in 1976, fresh out of college — Brigham Young University in Utah — as a security part-timer.

The composer had died before he was born.

"I never had a chance to meet grandma," he said.

But he knows her work, especially "Leahi," which she and Johnny Noble wrote about the landmark more commonly known as Diamond Head.

Over the years, Robins worked for the state, and in other hotel positions and at other hotels. Currently, he's a full-time assistant manager at the Hale Koa Hotel but has kept returning to the Royal Hawaiian.

"I moonlight here," he said. "It's just a special place, it's very sentimental."

He added: "In the concrete jungle, there's still a piece of old Hawai'i."

His father, Fred Robins Sr., was one of the last of Hawai'i's lighthouse keepers, he said, stationed at Kalaupapa, at Kilauea on Kaua'i and at Kalaeloa. Roy and his wife, Laverne, have two sons and two daughters.

He's pleased to see the original arches in the lobby uncovered and restored.

And Robins has a personal story about the hotel: "My wife and I had our honeymoon here," in the presidential suite.

Before they checked in, he bragged to her to expect an extra-special hotel, unaware of a practical joke being planned by his co-workers. Robins elaborated on the royal treatment they would get: the sprawling suite, the king-size bed, and the general luxury.

Then they got to the room and had to fight through balloons that filled the suite. After battling to the bedroom, he stared in horror at the empty box spring on the floor.

Finally, he found the large mattress stuffed into the bathroom. With his wife still decked out in her wedding gown, the two wrestled the mattress back on the box spring, then tumbled exhausted onto the bed.

His prankster friends kept the surprises coming: A pager at 4 a.m.; short-sheeting the bed. But Robins said they still had a lovely time.

Still, they haven't stayed over since.

Royal Hawaiian Hotel by Mary Pula'a Robins (1927)