The following program has been funded in part by grants from the Hawaiʻi State Foundation on Culture and the arts and the people of Chevron in Hawaii.

Across Hawaiʻi are scattered numerous older towns and small central business districts.

Rows of false front facades gracefully adorned with the trims and moldings of a bygone era.

These are the once prosperous business districts that formerly served a primarily agricultural population, and which flourished in a slower paced, perhaps more gracious world, where a small business and individual ownership was the rule.

The mobility offered by the automobile and increased affluence among a broader segment of the population led to the rise of the shopping center, and the resulting depression of small town businesses.

The structures of commerce, the business buildings of the towns stand firmly upon their foundations, rooted in their historic sites and testimony of the enterprise of their builders and tenants.

These buildings are physical elements in the continuum of life that makes a town.

Along with the shift in business energy, came a loss of the encapsulated lifestyle that is at the center of small town living.

Everyone knows everyone, and mutual needs are served at an ongoing interrelationship of commerce, individual labor, and family activity.

Hanapēpē has always looked at itself as a town that was attempting to revitalize itself, in the sense of bringing back the activity of a town that once was indeed Kauaʻi’s biggest little town.

On that basis, the townspeople were looking at a town that were inviting people and that I think, is very important.

Downtown Hilo, in my mind is the last large Pacific town left in the entire state of Hawaiʻi.

And I think for that reason, alone, that we should be saving this thing.

The reason why we want to save Haleʻiwa is to retain that so called character for future generations.

For us, really is for us, I think it is and to save that so called flavor and character that you, that you have there, that we don't have something happened to it that they will never can be restored.

So, this is what we want to save for for future for us.

Largely occupied by proprietors nearing retirement, the businesses falter in the face of shifting shopping habits, and the pace of contemporary lifestyle.

Progressive business owners take space in the new shopping centers, while less aggressive merchants carry on serving fewer and fewer customers.

Their sons and daughters often seek employment elsewhere, or leave the state entirely, seeking broader opportunity on the U.S. mainland.

As the business climate deteriorates, so do the mostly wooden buildings, falling prey to sun, rain, and the lowly termite.

1968 when I first came home from college, the town already had a little bit of empty buildings, but nothing that I considered to be significant.

However, when I returned from the mainland, it's when I first began to fully appreciate the buildings in Hanapēpē town without understanding why.

After the hurricane, when some buildings were torn down, I realized that something indeed had to be done, or else Hanapēpē town that I knew would not be here.

Well, I was born about 100 yards from where I'm standing right now.

We lived there until about 15 years ago then we moved to Kahului, which is about three miles down the street.

The town has changed considerably.

We've grown from big town which was big when I was young, to a point where now we’ll become stagnant.

And there's a lot of shopping centers have opened up.

They've taken a lot of businesses that were here away.

Local people have changed and have gone to the concept of shopping at your shopping centers.

They see their friends on their way to them.

Hi, John, Sue, whoever, and they've gone away from the mom-and-pop small Wailuku town.

Often, the familiar goes unseen, passed by through it's very perseverance.

Waiting in his small shop, the businessman sees little beyond his concerns for keeping afloat.

In some inexplicable cycle of awareness, some of the initial energy of renewal comes from without fresh entrepreneurial spirits, again, seeing the potential that originally built the town.

You know, Hilo’s a lovely place.

I mean, it's like when I first came here from Honolulu 13 years ago, it's like I fell in love with this quaint, charming town with sidewalks and residences, where everybody mows their lawn.

And it's a wonderful town.

But just like somebody forgot about it, and we found it, and we want everyone to share it and they can appreciate it.

I had been born and raised within the area right up the street above the mill.

And I remember the town as being one of the biggest towns on Maui, there was a lot of people a lot of activity a lot old cars in the old days.

And then years later, I left went to the mainland and came back and this area was just dead all all windows were boarded off.

It was really awful.

In 81, I purchased this place here in the bank and insurance companies, nobody was happy with the purchase.

And today it’s doing a real thriving business.

And seems like we're having more and more outside people, mainland people coming in and opening business and they're starting to really fix up the town, clean them up, paint them.

Here at the Pāʻia gallery, we've been open a little, little less than a year.

Actually, it was my wife's idea to come over this side of the island.

We've figured out in less than six, seven months now that it's been a total success.

And it was time for a gallery and to come to this side of the island and along with a few other new businesses on both sides of me.

And they have made success of their business.

And we're quite shocked to find out, we're very, very separated by the local people in town, roughly 30% of our businesses local trade, with our jewelry and artwork and pottery and so on so forth.

And, and my neighbors on both sides, we found out that same thing with the Chairman Club Shop.

With regard to businesses coming into Hilo, and new types of businesses, they are in fact not indicative of older, smaller merchant stores that were of Hilo’s past, which does obviously indicate a shift in buying power.

But what is good about it and what we do appreciate about that those types of shops is that they are not gentrified to a point where they're totally removed from the mainstream of purchasing.

They do have services, and they do have products that most people do want.

It's not just jewelry shops and t-shirts.

And that is something that, frankly, we're trying to protect from happening to downtown Hilo.

Looking at Keawe Street, for instance, and the Keawe Collection.

There are types of businesses that weren't necessarily the typical gift shop that wasn't downtown Hilo before, but because they are quaint and they are quality oriented, friendly, small merchants that have classy stuff.

People love it, they love to frequent it.

They are a group of independent quality-oriented merchants who to a discernible degree many times lead the way with regard to daring to be different.

To show that small quality efforts are more appreciated and are more personal than dealing with a large national chain in the middle of a larger conglomerate concrete building.

It's been wonderful my business because I changed from a poor location to a real good location.

A location that brings people together, upscale merchants where we take care of our stores, change the merchandise and the traffic in my shop has increased many fold over years ago.

And then as each other shop there's now we have 10 of us here.

Yes, well it was when I saw what you people were doing down the street and how energetic this full block was, I was real happy to see the corner available.

You're gonna win.

Thank you.

And what was great is that how you have accepted me in the group and how everybody gets together and do communal activities, because in a small business, in a small town, it's important that we all get together.

I found even as many years as I've been in business... We have a small town mentality, where, you know, we, we've been here all our lives, and we really don't get to realize what the visitors out there really want.

We see it happening all the time where a new business comes in, right in the heart of town, and, and creates an instant success.

Lappert’s Ice Cream as an example, I thought it was a shack coming up and I say how in the world can a business, put up a shack there and survive?

Well, see how wrong we were.

As the private sector has been attempting in its individual ways to respond to the sweeping changes in the last 20 years, so too have state and county governments.

Through the Planning Commission's and zoning boards, large scale planning efforts have been underway to plot a course for the future of Hawaiʻi in general and for Hawaiʻi’s small towns in particular.

As the planning director for Maui County in 1980, we really felt that it was necessary to look at a comprehensively at Maui County from an overall perspective.

So, there was the adoption of the Maui County community or general plan.

And then subsequent establishment of nine community planning districts, which identified the uniqueness of each one of the geographic areas there are three outer island community planning districts called Kahoʻolawe, Lānaʻi, and Molokaʻi, and then there are six community planning districts on Maui.

As we began to formulate those community plans, which are essentially development plans, we talked with the community leaders and the advisory committees that were appointed.

And there was a definite desire to try to maintain a quality of life, a quality of environment in each one of the community planning districts, right.

So there definitely is uniqueness and each one of these geographic areas in and of themselves.

But the intention was to really identify and perpetuate the uniqueness based on the environment and also the basic man-made structures within a given area.

So, we focused a lot on the towns.

Now out of those community plans, we've adopted what we call a country town business district zoning ordinance.

We went around to the rural business areas, took a look, initially identified some existing styles, relating them to the plantation lifestyle that had gone on before.

Then, we started to talk to people.

And once we started talking to people, we found out that they would look at buildings and say, that really is us.

But they couldn't tell us why they couldn't explain the details of it.

And as we got more into it, we started to talk to them about lifestyle, what their lifestyle was, back then what it is now, how they've seen the town change.

And that gave us a good feel for the design element.

So, in a sense, we've related lifestyle to design and try to come up with some unifying factor or essentially guidelines, which can communicate that feeling to not only the designer, but to the residents.

And we feel it's an important thing to do because what it does, it provides the kamaʻāina resident with a capsule picture history of their life.

On the other hand, it provides the new resident or the visitor with a summation of the evolution of a community.

As the former planning director for the county of Kauaʻi, I was given the opportunity to work with the main street program from its first inception.

A couple of years ago, we were visited by Phyllis Fox of the Hawaiʻi Historic Foundation.

She brought out several people from Washington to start off the main street program here in Kauaʻi.

And I believe they were mainly interested in the towns of Waimea, Hanapēpē and Kōloa.

Well, fortunately, some of the merchants in Waimea town saw it fit to proceed first, so they were the first town on the island to receive the main street program.

They came to us for assistance in preparing a community development block grant for funding to get the program started.

And I believe we helped them secure approximately $32,000 for a block grant to initiate the main street program.

While the Waimea Main Street program was going on, the town of Hanapēpē became interested in the main street program also.

Meanwhile, with all this mentioned activity going on, the planning department realized that no matter what all these communities do, they could never get it implemented, or get their projects off the ground without the assistance of the county.

And mainly the planning department.

All the planning in the world will not get the projects built unless you have a strong ordinance or implementing ordinance that will carry these things out.

Before I left the planning department, I had the opportunity to review some of the alternatives proposed to implement this main street program.

And what I recommended was that we go with the new ordinance that will amend all of the existing development plan ordinances.

And the reason for that is because somehow I believe when the project is finished, each town will have its own set of criteria that will not specifically match the other towns that would be the cleanest way of implementing this main street program.

As county planning department struggled with the balancing of the many forces present in a changing community, their search for expertise and funding introduced Hawaiʻi to the national Main Street programs.

Under the auspices of the Historic Hawaiʻi Foundation, the main street idea and its programs has spread statewide, now involving four important historic town centers.

While the framework is national in scope, and the legal structure created out of county government, the real task of Main Street is in the mobilization of the energy and commitment of local business As Main Street Project Manager for downtown Hilo, we're now entering our third year in the project started in September 1985.

The first year, year and a half was information and education, getting that out to the public, informing them about the approach of main street, what it was what it meant.

And basically, just how we're going to accomplish the goals of the tradition, turning the town around.

People are not only understanding what Main Street is, but they're beginning to get involved, because they see the pride rekindled once again.

And that to me is really key.

It's interesting when I became involved, which really from the beginning of the project, as one of the board members and helping educate the public as well as ourselves in training ourselves to understand this thing.

It took about six months for everyone to figure out that main street was not a project.

It wasn't a program.

It's merely a philosophy.

It's an approach to revitalization.

And it takes a real understanding of that.

And that's what was key was taking the four points of organization, promotion, design and economic restructuring, and taking them off of paper and making them work, making them kinetic instead of static.

And for us, it took a year and a half to get all four points beginning to take off the ground at the same time.

Good morning, Mr. Lau, how are you?

Oh, hi Kirk.

How you been?

You?

You too?

Listen, we just were talking to some people the other day and looking around.

And I know, here in Downtown Hilo, you've been in business for quite some time and wanted to talk story a little bit.

Well, we've been in operation for about 72 years now.

Of course, we were incorporated in 1940.

Long time ago.

Just out of curiosity, Mr. Lau with regard to main street and its effort, has, you know, has been in town about three years now.

Just entering the third year, you've been involved with the downtown Improvement association since 1962 and been in business for quite some time.

What do you think about Main Street?

What I really think that Main Street is a terrific program.

And it's really doing something and he's really helping to hear what you call the local merchant.

In other words, we have direction now, you know, positive direction with people that know something about like, like you, you know, Well see that's what was curious is we the DIA is a good merchant organization, as we all know, we all belong to it.

But what, what was the difference that you think Main Street did what did provide that direction you think that we didn't maybe have?

Well in a sort of a way because when you first started out you just are contribution just by their members, just to your members from the stores the business world here, contributions.

But now we have what I say professional service from you like that and from the organization like Main Street program.

We didn't have that before.

So, I can see a definite strong trend for the people in his business in downtown Hilo.

You know, Mr. Lau is like so many of the other merchants downtown in that all these traditional anchors are still here on Kamehameha Avenue.

They front the bay that's right out here.

And all these people that have been along Kam Avenue have been through two tidal waves so far, different shopping centers being built, and yet they still all survive.

You know, not only are these traditional anchor stores hanging on, they're doing quite well.

They're also a major part of the main street program, as they participate as much if not more than most of the merchants down here.

Wailuku Main Street has launched an extensive promotions campaign, to let the people out there, focus in on Wailuku.

There is a Wailuku, she is different special.

We are trying to rekindle what the fond memories of Wailuku.

And in so doing that we are trying to take a look at the physical elements and try to restore that to its former glory.

Now, obviously, these people were here during the very bad times when the shopping centers cropped up and they really suffered because business went down.

However, right now, people are starting to realize shopping centers are are just that shopping centers where you go buy commodities and goods, but Wailuku has elements that you would never find in a shopping center.

And people are starting to pay attention to them and saying, “Hey, look, this is pretty special.” Wailuku may in fact be one of the very last towns on Maui, aside from Hāna, that reflects the true feeling of aloha and what the the local merchants have been and are all about.

In addition to launching that extensive promotions public awareness program, we have conducted a survey as to what you know what the demand is, what what do they want?

It seems that they needed a connecting link of communication.

Having a full-time project manager was the start.

It helped them enormously because they had one leader to identify with.

But we took it further than that, we created a Wailuku Main Street newsletter.

In that newsletter, we tie everybody in because everybody is very well informed as to what is happening.

They, they feel a renewed sense of pride.

In addition to that, we have done a walk tour booklet of Wailuku, which has been enormously popular.

It becomes a Wailuku adventure.

From what the merchants tell me is they are experiencing an increase in sales.

We are visibly seeing an influx of visitors coming in, we hope to launch more programs in the future to bring in even more people, but it is a good start.

Just imagine, this magnificent town was once the center of commerce on the whole entire island of Maui.

You know, it just amazes me because every time I talk to someone about Wailuku, I find that there isn't one person who has not been reared here on this island that does not have some fond memory of Wailuku.

She truly is magnificent and that's why I refer to Wailuku many a time as a hostess of memories for that she truly is.

As is evident, we have quite a bit of traffic here in Wailuku.

You can see that this is quite a busy intersection.

We don't necessarily see the traffic as being a hinderance to we're very pleased as a matter of fact that we have so many people that come by Wailuku.

What we need to do is find some positive solutions to the existing traffic problem.

And we're hard at work on that.

It is no easy quick fix solution.

What we are doing is we have a very good traffic and parking committee established that's working very effectively towards creating possible solutions.

Now what we're going to do is take those solutions work with the redevelopment agency, see if get their input, and see if they that seems acceptable to them and then we will go to our county council and see if they can aid us in assist us in truly taking care of this traffic and parking problem once and for all.

If you look at main street from the point of view of the individual merchants down there, as well as the as the shoppers, the people that occupy the area, it becomes a small neighborhood and the small neighborhood in a human scale, something that they can associate with and comprehend very easily.

And when you improve that ambience, when you clean it up, you'll get rid of the trash and you get some nice clean paint.

You get more people coming down there to enjoy it.

You have some trade-offs here.

You're going to get more traffic.

So, you're having parking problems, but you're getting more people in there, they're going to spend some more money and they're going to enjoy themselves.

It's a cyclical thing.

The more people come, the more they spend, the more they come and that just builds on itself.

And that's one of the problems is trying to keep something like that from getting out of control.

We don't want Wailuku to go critical.

We want it to maintain, and I think we can, I think we can do that.

The future of the past will not only occur in this town, I think you've seen some examples of it occurring and Kapaʻa and Kōloa, and another town that's going to have a lot of future impact from this main street program will be Hanapēpē.

The future from the past will result in economic revitalization for this town.

I see restoring the buildings in Hanapēpē as really our best solution to revitalize our town because it's really the most economical to do and it's an asset that we've been blinded to for all these years.

Hawaiʻi’s rural towns bypassed in the sweeping changes since statehood are deeply involved in individual and community projects to preserve, enrich and revitalize their communities.

Sensing that their home towns are slipping away, residents have sought assistance from their county planning departments and some are participating in the nationwide Main Street programs.

In addition to a focus upon business revitalization, there is a growing commitment to the preservation of the buildings themselves.

Deferred maintenance and the ravages of Pacific sun and rain has left many structures near collapse, and others long overdue for repair and paint.

Planning and design professionals are at work statewide, assisting in the often monumental task of rebuilding both the structures and the community as a whole.

In the midst of efforts at revival, there remain a few examples of ongoing businesses, some several generations at the same location, which can serve as beacons to others.

The store is about 68 years old, erected back in the 1920s.

My grandfather was a self-taught tailor that started this business.

It's been in the family for three generations and when the family was approached as to who to take over, no one actually wanted to.

But then I decided to run the business to keep it in the family.

We sell mostly Hawaiian fabrics and souvenirs but our main business is to do surfing shorts and aloha shirts made to order.

It's sold right in this, in this store with Mrs. Asano and Mrs. Kawaguchi and my mom who's with us still working, she's 84, but still working in the store.

When I took over back in 1968, I thought I would like to preserve the old-fashioned look of Haleʻiwa, to make it unique, because most of the buildings are being modernized now.

The tourists that stopped by here the store are amazed that we were able to keep the old-fashioned building, which was very unique to them.

And it was something nostalgic for them to be coming here.

And they would come here every year when they come back to Hawaiʻi.

The only change that I've seen is the new build shopping centers that are coming up, but what they're trying to do is make their building look like ours.

Restoration is a delicate subject, involving numerous value judgments from both consultants and owners.

Incorrect materials and inappropriate colors can seriously mar a building's appearance.

Archival and on-site research can provide many of the guidelines.

Historic records traced the changes in use of a building and examination by a trained and sensitive observer can reveal volumes of unspoken history.

Often a coat of fresh paint can bring out the clouded charm of a single building and begin a chain reaction that can spread through a town.

The essential basic styles that you see throughout Maui County really emanating from the sugar plantations or pineapple plantations.

What you see is a very simple style of design, very functional.

People would come in and build to their needs build with with the materials they had, and they create a unique design sense.

What you tend to see is a mixture of various elements the New England style, which is very prominent in Lāhainā town, the Western or Monterey style prominent in our more rural areas.

Then what you tend to see is an evolution of buildings.

As people came off the plantation, different ethnic groups came off the plantation, their influence was added and it's become a composite style, very simple, very elegant, and very functional.

The design process that we go through for an old town is twofold.

One is to look at the community in terms of the people and to try to talk with them to establish what their values are for the community.

To find out what buildings are important to them.

A building that from an artistic or architectural point of view may not have a lot of value may have a strong value for the community because of associations or some kind of reflection to their, the town's past.

The second part that we do is we go into the town and do a thorough analysis of the individual buildings.

From a very analytical point of view, we look at the condition of the building, where it's located in the town relative to the major transportation corridors.

Also, whether it has any unusual design characteristics.

This Kauaʻi Main Streets main accomplishment so far has been the preparation, the architectural guidelines done under Community Development Block Grant and our design committee.

Spencer Mason architects in Honolulu were the most enthusiastic and carried the job through for us.

They actually went out and photographed every single building in the commercial district.

Over 140 buildings were photographed from four to six different angles, and fact sheets in which they entered pertinent data on each of the buildings.

The Okada building was one of those buildings that we selected.

It was in a very prime location.

And so any work done on that building would be seen by most people that were going through the town.

We convinced Mr. Okada that he should do work on his building, which was the first step because it's very important to get the people that are owning the building involved in the process of the design work.

We chose some colors the primary colors for those buildings were because the building was a neoclassical style building.

So, we didn't choose any color but a color that was appropriate to the style of the building.

We choose pink colors two ways.

It depends on the building itself.

If the building is a high historic value buildings such as the Okada building we’ll do a paint scraping, we take off a little bit of the paint all the way down to the pure to the wood underneath.

And then through a microscope, look at the colors that the building was painted.

On other structures that are less, historically significant, we will do a color that's appropriate to the style of the building.

Plantation colors, which are the cream, dark green and dark red.

Neoclassical colors, which are at creams and whites and grays.

Our work in Hanapēpē is quite different than some of the other projects we've worked on.

In Hanapēpē, in the community forums, one of the ideas that came up very, very strongly was they did not want a book written about Hanapēpē, they wanted action.

And as part of the design process, a product came up of what they wanted, and they wanted what they're calling paint the town.

The Painted Town program will have the biggest impact on Hanapēpē, because it'll be the first real visual thing that our merchants and residents have seen.

We've done a lot of talk all this time.

We've done some promotions, but they come and go.

Once we start painting the buildings and this paint the town program is supposed to provide paint for 40 buildings in the town, which is about half of the buildings, it'll create such an overnight change in the town, it's bound to attract attention.

We have chosen a building that we would like to use as a prototype for the paint town project.

This building the former Shokudo was a restaurant at one time later on a social gathering place.

Although the building is a little small, it fits perfectly as far as the main street program is concerned because of the fact that it is a very doable project.

All of a sudden, another fear pops up.

What are the color choices?

Has this firm indeed kept to the old historic look of the town?

Or will we look like a Disneyland scene.

For some of us who have been spending time looking at Historic Preservation and realizing that the key to our economic revitalization lies within the fact that we may not do our historic preservation well.

We have to maintain integrity, or else we lose it.

In many of these older towns, the ravages of the elements have taken buildings beyond repair, and there is no choice but to tear them down.

Offering the opportunity for architects to create new structures in their place.

In the hands of a sensitive builder, this opportunity can create an infill building that relates and reflects its historic neighbors, while an inappropriate structure can seriously damage the historic streetscape.

As insurance against this possibility, many counties and towns have created design guidelines to assist professionals and to protect the fabric of a community.

Here in Pāʻia, we were asked some months ago to redesign a building here on the corner.

So, structure has been here for a number of years.

However, as we got into the design process, we realized that the existing building really didn't have the form or the character of the rest of the buildings on the street.

We looked around the town to derive some inspiration from the existing details.

In the 1930s, this entire side of the town burned to the ground, apparently from the act of an arsonist.

But what also which is also apparent is the fact that these buildings are all rebuilt, probably by the same craftsman builder.

You can see a similarity and details the gable roof with the same detailing and the ends of the rafter tips.

We've got the brackets and the attic vents are all of a similar design to the sort of gumdrop shape.

the canopies with the chains.

What's interesting I find about the old towns even when you have the same builder doing the work is the fact that the character of the town is defined a lot by the spaces in between the buildings how the buildings relate to one another.

The fact that one facade jumps up and there's a gap of light in between really defines the architectural tone and character of these old Hawaiian towns.

And what we see here and is really a meeting of east and west in architectural setting, as we see in the cultural setting throughout the islands here.

It's one of the reasons why these towns should be preserved in their character and perpetuated as as a marker to this initial blending of architectural styles.

As we got further into design, we looked at all for instance, the buildings you see in the background here with the two-story stucco elements and some of the special detailing up under the cornices and the smaller building with a little tile details.

We felt we could incorporate some of these details in a in a new structure that would respect the the streetscape that's already in place here, and in fact improve actually the situation as it stands today.

Consequently, our design employed an active use of these existing details, and especially the attic vents.

The attic vents really were an expression of the craftsman builders of these older structures was the most articulated artistic expression that these builders employed and in the construction of the old Hawaiian towns.

A sensitive observer in these old Hawaiian towns, will find that there's a wealth of design detail that can be drawn upon to incorporate into the designs of infill buildings or rehabilitation of old decaying structures.

As historic preservationism is sweeping across the country, so too is the realization that there is economic strength in restoration of commercial properties.

Development interests, large and small, are turning towards these older communities, creating projects that either involve or replicate historic structures.

Projects ranged from the painting and repair of a single small building to the renovation of an entire town.

In some cases, development energy comes into a community from outside and in others, it is sourced from within.

As sleeping towns awaken, it is not without mixed impact.

Increased business brings more people and their automobiles, old ways change, and the lifestyle can change with it unless care is taken.

The restoration of historic structures are very, very successful, I believe in our city.

Although there may be reluctance from the developer landowner at the beginning, because usually it involves more time, more design time and more costs.

Because the detailing in the effort to do a good job and to replicate the spirit of the existing building it takes more to do.

But the end result is great.

Merchants find that their property values, not only for their buildings, but surrounding buildings are enhanced.

It creates a unique quality that hopefully has some economic return for the developer and that's that's good.

Hey, Lucinda, Hello, Howard?

How's it going?

It's going really well.

We've been here three days.

And any business?

Actually, yes, and we don't have the signs up or anything completed, as you can see, and we've had a lot of response, a lot of people.

The purpose of the center is to allow small tourist manufacturing and trades people to make things here and sell them to the tourists public.

The idea is that the tourist gets to see and get to meet the person who actually makes the things and gets to see the entire ambience of the of the manufacturing facility and we're trying to do it in a, an architecturally correct way that is we've tried to gather in our designs are from actual old designs of buildings in Haleʻiwa and in other communities.

When a tourist comes to Hawaiʻi, they're coming to see what's Hawaiʻi like?

And if we show them something that looks exactly like their own town, why bother?

They could go downtown in their own home and save the plane fare right.

I think that the design ordinance is a good example of how more than one person can think of a good idea at the same time because we decided to do this before we knew about the design ordinance.

And the design ordinance people decided to do what they were going to do when they didn't know anything about us, and we designed the buildings and sent them over there, and they said, Well this is what we had in mind.

And we said, when what if they said, when we pass this ordinance and we said, oh, you know, so it was just, I guess, serendipity.

When you go to somebody's house, you kind of behave like a guest, and you behave about the way you think that they want you to behave, and so on if you're a good guest.

And it's the same thing when you come and build a project in somebody's community, even if you happen to live in that community.

You know, you're doing something to people's home.

It's a very personal project.

I am not a developer in general.

I have developed this particular project because I wanted to do this project.

And what it is, is producing, if you want to call it my dream, and so I wanted to make it possible for that to happen, not just for me, but also for the other people who are the tenants here.

We primarily invest in commercial real estate, with a special emphasis on existing older buildings, preferably historically registered buildings.

We like to purchase buildings, renovate them, release them, and hold them long term for investment benefits.

Kōloa town, when I first became aware of the opportunity to do something there with a family that had owned it, for over 100 years, from the time the very first plantation Sugar Mill operated there in 1835, the family that I leased the town from has owned it.

So, when the opportunity came along for us to do an entire town, to me, that's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

And it was almost like a dream come true in terms of being able to do something to to an entire area rather than one building.

And it became very, very obvious that if the town could be renovated to its original condition as much as possible, authentically to its original condition, there was no reason why tourists wouldn't find it attractive, appealing and desirable to stop there.

I was a lifelong resident, went to grammar school here born and raised in Kōloa.

Many changes many changes over the years.

The town was an old plantation town, a town where you could drive through and wave it.

Everybody knew everybody and the people lived here and work the stores.

We don't have the same Hawaiian island town that we had years ago.

Over here used to be the music store owned by two Filipino boys and that’s where they play music.

And right here was a pool hall.

And that’s where I had my shoe stand, right here.

Right here?

Yeah, and behind had a pool hall and running some game back here.

I think I think some crap game.

And right here.

Kōloa been changing here about last, how many years now?

About 10 years.

And this place where we had nothing but a fisherman.

You know, all plantation workers mostly.

Then came this developers.

I think this place is one of the oldest now.

I think that's only one way to get live in here in Kōloa, Kōloa town.

Now we get, we got to cross our fingers of what going come up next.

That's not the town that it used to be.

It's a completely reoriented town toward tourism.

The local people, we don't buy a whole lot of t-shirts that say, Hawaiʻi I love you, or whatever it is.

We buy real clothes.

I walk through town and I'm a stranger in a way.

And that's kind of weird when you've been born and raised in a town and realize that there's nobody there anymore that says, gosh, I remember you and you were a little kid.

Or you could say gosh, I remember you when you were a little kid.

And they're not, it's all gone.

A great amount of that has gone.

One of this top solid foundations of our community is the Kikiola land development.

Mike fire the director over there has been very supportive of the main street program and also the historical resources of this area.

Kikiola has started, well actually led us into redevelopment with their plantation cottages project.

These are old plantation houses which they're renovating and turning into visitor accommodations.

They’re right along the beach area in the palm grove and both the local people and visitors from the mainland are really enjoying them.

They're saying, Oh, this is what Hawaiʻi really is.

And it's great having someone that has this feeling of aloha in their development.

Most of the buildings that we're using are from the old Lyman sugar mill camp.

The buildings when start on them are generally in pretty dilapidated condition.

They've seen 75 years of real abuse, changes, everybody has their own idea of what how they want to live.

We find that to get the message across on these old buildings and that they are old is really the details, particularly the windows and the doors.

We found a supplier in Florida will supply us with double hung windows.

And our first order with him is in now, doors we salvaged from other homes.

Part of the renovation of the buildings is not only using the materials and going through a catalog, but it's the way that it goes together.

And that's we've got our own carpenter shop, and our own men that work on this every day.

This is an example of a house that we're just started working on.

As you can see, the these are the bats that are very important as far as a detail in restoring these one by twelve born batten homes, that is precisely the size of the original bats.

And they're set all on exactly 12-inch centers.

Hey Harold, how’s it going today?

Fine.

This cottage here, 32 is a little bit unique, special that it's got old weighted, double hung windows.

This is quite unusual for workers home.

But somebody went through the trouble a while ago to make them work or to install them and make them work.

And we decided to keep this as a example of the changes that these houses go through over the years.

Hey Mike, look what I found.

Wow, these are the good kine too.

These older rim lack, rim locks are far better than the new ones that are on the market today.

Thanks Harold.

I was thinking, you know, why do we go through this?

Is it?

Are we persecuting ourselves?

Or what?

or is this some throwback to our childhood that we're desperately clinging to our past?

I think that's part of it, obviously retaining preserving what's old and I think that's really why everybody is into the preservation to a large degree.

But there's other reasons each of these buildings has a story.

And they're say 75 ,80 years old, and there is a story in each of them.

I believe that Hawaiian style for lifestyle is more than buildings.

It's a certain way of looking at people.

I think this his hometown, small town, and it's caring about the next person and helping the next person out.

Now these kinds of things disappear each time as the town gets larger, becomes a city and the city becomes a large inactive state.

I truly believe that if we are to continue to be a mainstay in the tourist economy, that we need to recognize what it is that is Hawaiʻi and we cannot be following what the mainlanders think what is Hawaiian and Hawaiʻi is real simple.

And it's a mixed up potpourri of various cultures.

But it is this potpourri that is something that has created an intangible quality that I recognize as old style.

It's important.

Spectrum was funded in part by grants from the people of Chevron in Hawaii and the Hawaiʻi State Foundation.