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November 25, 2019 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Tantalus

Tantalus is located in the Koʻolau mountain range in the Kona district of the island of O‘ahu. The ridges that carry Tantalus Drive and Round Top Drive surround Makiki Valley. Within this valley, three streams, Kānealole, Moleka and Maunalaha, eventually drain into Māmala Bay off of the Honolulu Plain.

Early Hawaiians grew taro near the mouth of Makiki Valley where runoff from the three streams created ideal agricultural conditions.

Archaeologists speculate that by the 1600s the lowland forests had been extensively harvested and that approximately eighty-percent of the land below 2,000-feet elevation was altered.

Puʻu ʻŌhiʻa, its traditional name, had been given the name “Tantalus” during a hiking excursion by the Punahou student hiking club, the Clan Alpine (mid-1800s.)

The students began their hike at Pu‘u ‘Ualaka‘a. As night approached, they found themselves at the edge of the ridge overlooking Poloke Valley. Unable to continue due to the thick undergrowth, the boys were forced to give up their ascent. Versed in Greek mythology, the students named the mountain ‘Tantalus’. (National Register)

(The mythological Tantalus was condemned to an afterlife of insatiable hunger and thirst due to unreachable pools of water and overhanging fruit.)

‘Round Top’ and ‘Sugar Loaf’ were also named by early Punahou students; these names appear on an 1873 ‘Map of Makiki Valley’ surveyed by William De Witt Alexander.

Mo‘olelo (Hawaiian stories) indicate that Pu‘u ‘Ualaka‘a was a favored locality for sweet potato cultivation and King Kamehameha I established his personal sweet potato plantation here.

Pu‘u translates as “hill” and ‘ualaka‘a means “rolling sweet potato”, so named for the steepness of the terrain. Within the valley is a quarry where the basalt outcrop was chipped into pieces to make octopus lures. That is believed to be the origin of the word ‘makiki’ – a type of stone used for weights in octopus lures.

Historical attempts at cultivation in the Makiki-Tantalus area included a coffee plantation by JM Herring along Moleka Stream in the late-1800s (valley conditions proved too wet for coffee beans to flourish) and Hawai‘i’s first commercial macadamia nut plantation along the west side of Pu‘u ‘Ualaka‘a. Rows of macadamia nuts trees from the original orchard remain today.

Due to the close proximity to Honolulu Harbor, the Makiki-Tantalus forest underwent severe deforestation in two periods. In the first period, heavy timber was cut for the sandalwood trade with China from 1815 to 1826.

In the second period, 1833 to 1860, wood was primarily harvested as fuel for the whaling trade to render whale blubber into oil. By the late-1800s most of Makiki was bare, denuded of trees. The native forest was gone.

As early as 1846, the Kingdom of Hawai‘i was facing development pressure from the public regarding the Makiki-Tantalus watershed. The barren hillsides were heavily eroded and the quantity and quality of fresh water in the streams was compromised.

That same year, King Kamehameha III passed a law declaring forests to be government property. In 1876, the Kingdom passed the “Act for the Protection and Preservation of Woods and Forests” including watershed preservation. In 1880, further legislation was enacted to protect all watershed areas that contributed domestic water supplies in the Makiki, Tantalus, Round Top and Pauoa area.

Despite the establishment of the protected area, 1890s legislation allowed citizens to acquire residential property on Tantalus.

The beginnings of Tantalus and Round Top drives date to 1892. The 10-mile drive was completed as gravel roads in 1917, and first paved in 1937. The Tantalus-Round Top road is a 10-mile drive that begins near the entrance to Pūowaina (Punchbowl -National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.)

The Biennial Report of the Minister of the Interior to the Legislative Assembly of 1892 states that the Tantalus carriage road “begins at the Punchbowl Road, forming a junction with the same at the rear of the hill, at an elevation of about 285 feet, and follows a 5% grade up the ridge known as the forest ridge, to the narrow ridge, dividing Makiki from Pauoa Valley, at an elevation of about 1450 feet; then around the South Slope of Tantalus and head of the ravines leading into Makiki, to a point by the Pond just above ‘Sugar Loaf.’”

The roadway climbs Tantalus Drive along the Kalāwahine ridge between Pauoa and Makiki Valleys and then descends along Round Top Drive on the ridge linking Pu‘u ‘Ōhi‘a (Mount Tantalus, 2,013-feet,) Pu‘u Kākea (Sugarloaf, 1,408-feet) and Pu‘u ‘Ualaka‘a (Round Top, 1,052-feet,) then past Maunalaha Valley Road to Makiki Street.

The continuing development of the carriage road was reported in the June 1898 issue of the Paradise of the Pacific, “Myth of Mountain Tantalus”: “At every turn are new sections of the glorious and ever expanding panorama of ocean and sky; of mountain, town and plain, including large portions of the island.”

“But the richest part of the road above where it cuts through the upper wildwood of koa and kukui, intermingled with luxuriant fern and wild ginger- all overhanging the deep canyons. One is here in another world – cool, green, moist…it is a long and tedious climb to Tantalus, but once there, the lingering visitor will never regret or forget its romance and the melancholy cadence of its winds.”

In 1906, the Civic Federation of Honolulu brought Charles Mulford Robinson, a well-known civic adviser from Rochester, New York for a survey of streets, parks and public works in Honolulu. He recommended securing the top of Tantalus for “the one great park for Honolulu that cities now are learning to secure and save for the people, that they may get close to nature, forgetting the fences and survey lines which civilization has thrown like a network of prison walls upon the world.”

The Tantalus-Round Top stretch is the first roadway on Oʻahu to be placed on the state historic register. Kūhiō Highway on Kauaʻi and Hana Highway on Maui are on the state and national registers of historic places. (According to Historic Roads, a national group dedicated to preserving old thoroughfares, there are 97 roads in the nation listed as historic.) (Info from Historic Hawaiʻi Foundation and National Register.)

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Buggies on Mt. Tantalus, Honolulu, 1900s.
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View from Tantalus Hill-(vic&becky)-1954

Filed Under: Place Names Tagged With: Tantalus, Puu Ualakaa, Sugar Loaf, Round Top, Hawaii, Oahu, Punahou, Makiki

November 1, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Liljestrand

Howard Liljestrand was born in Iowa in 1911. The child of medical missionaries, he was raised in Sichuan, China. He graduated from Harvard Medical School and met his wife, Helen Betty Horner, at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Cape Cod.

In 1937, Betty and Howard Liljestrand arrived in Hawaii as honeymooners and medical missionaries en route to China – they came to Hawaii so Howard could complete his residency at Queens Hospital.

The two had planned to return to China, but the country’s growing political tensions of the coming Communist revolution delayed and, ultimately, diverted them and kept them in the Islands. He worked at a plantation hospital near Pearl Harbor, where the couple raised four kids. (Quill)

When Howard and Betty Liljestrand decided to move from their Plantation Style cottage in Aiea to a neighborhood closer to Honolulu.

Knowing that they wanted to build a house, the Liljestrands spent a decade looking for the ideal plot of land. It was on a hike in the rain forest on Tantalus that they decided that this was where they wanted to build their home.

While hiking they met George Coulter sitting on his porch watching the sunset. They struck up a casual conversation, telling George about their desire to move to the mountain. Realizing how much they loved it, George offered to sell them a portion of his land.

The Liljestrands purchased 2.5 acres from Coulter in 1946: a 2 acre square parcel on one side of Coulter’s house lot, and a half acre parcel on the other side that was just below a ridge-line overlooking the city. The half-acre parcel didn’t have the entire view they wanted, the other side of the ridge was conservation land owned by the Territory of Hawaii.

They made an even trade with the Territory; they would deed the 2 acre square parcel to the Territory for conservation land in exchange for the half acre parcel on the other side of the ridge-line from their own. This secured the view of the city that they wanted, and created the house lot for their new home. (NPS)

Given their lifestyle, they had an extensive list of programmatic needs. First and foremost, the wanted a home of unusual quality and livability. They firmly believed in the ‘emotional power of architecture to give meaning to life’ and pursued a ‘spirit lifting’ quality in their home. (Penick; Pace Setter Homes)

They wanted “morning sun in the kitchen, no morning sun in the bedroom (Howard was a late sleeper), a single loaded corridor, views from every room, no rooms as passageways, lots of storage, a front door easily and naturally accessible, places where work can be left out, and a circular drive.” (Liljestrand House)

They hired Vladimir Ossipoff to design their 6,700-square-foot dream house, with Betty, who was clearly ahead of her time, serving as general contractor. The Liljestrands moved into the house, which was nearly complete, in 1952. (Quill)

The house has an irregular H-shaped floor plan, with one wing set at a 45 degree angle, instead of perpendicular to the middle wing. The house is constructed of redwood which throughout has been managed with a variety of treatments to fit the feeling and flow of the floor plan. (NPS)

The house is set far off the street, down a private road with a security gate. The road services two residences, and divides after 50 yards or so, with the left driveway leading to the Liljestrand property.

Ossipoff designed the house to showcase the view from the ridge. The house was situated on the ridge to extend the view from Diamond Head in one direction to the airport in the other.

The natural beauty around the house was an important element incorporated into the design. The use of floor to ceiling windows and walls that slide away, entirely open the house to the outside world. The long driveway and forested area provide privacy.

Between 1946 and 1965, House Beautiful named 17 Pace Setter houses for the post–World War II years. The Liljestrand House was selected in 1958, commanding the cover and 53 pages of the magazine.

The Pace Setters were not designated to impress the fine-arts world but to translate high design for a postwar nuclear family. Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses could be too dark, and Le Corbusier’s roofs leaked, but the Pace Setters were livable. (Departures)

The Liljestrand House typifies a romantic vision of midcentury life, with a kitchen that includes work stations for flower arranging, sewing, typing and gift wrapping.

The living and dining rooms have an open plan for parties, with conversational seating areas for intimacy. Recreational activities are relegated to the downstairs – with billiards, Ping-Pong, movie screenings and a kidney-shaped pool outside.

The house builds on aspects of previous Hawaiian architecture, the low, simple front façade draws from earlier Craftsman and the vernacular Plantation Style of houses. Ossipoff’s vision embraces key concepts of life in Hawaii, such as the expansion of the living area to include the outdoors. (NPS)

Almost fifty years after its publication in House Beautiful, the Liljestrand House appeared in Western Interiors and Design, on the cover of Metropolis, and in the book, The Hawaiian House Now.

In 2007 and 2008, respectively, The Liljestrand House was listed on the Hawaii State and the United States National Registers of Historic Places.

In 2009, the Liljestrand House received a Preservation Award from the Historic Hawaii Foundation. In a letter to the Liljestrand Family the Historic Foundation called the house “one of the most, if not the most, intact historic structures in the state.”

They also recognized that the furniture, built-in interiors, and contents – all designed or selected by the architect – remain in original condition; the architectural source materials – notes, memos, letters, drawings, materials lists, invoices, and even the building permit – exist; and that film and photos of the construction exist.

The Liljestrand family has created the Liljestrand Foundation. The mission of the Foundation is to preserve the house and to make that preservation purposeful by opening the house to the public for tours and for charitable, cultural, and educational activities. (Liljestrand House)

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Filed Under: Buildings, Place Names, Prominent People Tagged With: Hawaii, Tantalus, Vladimir Ossipoff, Howard Liljestrand

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People, places, and events in Hawaiʻi’s past come alive through text and media in “Images of Old Hawaiʻi.” These posts are informal historic summaries presented for personal, non-commercial, and educational purposes.

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