The building is noted as the guest house where from mid-December 1916 author W. Somerset Maugham resided for six weeks during an extended trip through the South Sea Islands.

He described it as a "dilapidated lodging house with a corrugated tin roof" and complained that he contracted "a stubborn rash, no doubt fungus" while at the hotel, and of the weeks it took to cure it.

[2] The building was subsequently the setting of his short story "Rain", published in 1921, which depicted a psychological battle of wits between a wayward, on-the-run prostitute, Sadie Thompson, and a conservative, self-righteous missionary.

Although conclusive evidence is lacking, Maugham was apparently in residence at the lodging house with a real person named Sadie Thompson, who reportedly had been driven from a red-light district in Honolulu.

[3] The Sadie Thompson Inn is historically significant for its association with Somerset Maugham during the waning years of the British Empire in the South Sea Islands.