By Robert M. Fox and David Cheever /
Special to the Star-Advertiser
 |
| ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERT M. FOX |
August 4, 2013
Typical of Hawaii,
Mid-Pacific Institute today is an amalgam of ethnic groups. But in its early
days it was really two schools without much diversity, made up of Kawaiaha‘o
Seminary (1864), for the daughters of missionaries, and Mills School (1892),
for boys of Chinese ancestry. Both were schools started in separate private
homes.
Around
1905, the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, which administered both schools,
decided to bring them together and, after examining several sites, settled on
purchasing 32 acres in Manoa.
The
school newspaper, the Oriental Student, reported in 1907, "Guided by the
advice of the architect, and the suggestions of the contour of the land itself,
a beautiful and most satisfactory site was chosen. From this breezy and
elevated hillcrest a superb view is obtained of our grand old landmark, Diamond
Head, and the sweep of the blue Pacific, fringed with coconut palms."
The
usual missionary names — Atherton, Castle, Bishop, Rice, Cooke and Wilcox — who
had funded the original Kawaiaha‘o Seminary came through again and built
Atherton Hall in 1908 on the hill crest of the new campus. A few years later it
was renamed Kawaiaha‘o Hall, which is the name today.
Designed
by Henry Livingston Kerr, this 62,000-square-foot grand building dominated the
landscape of Manoa just after the turn of the century. Today the school says
that Kawaiaha‘o Hall stands as the oldest multistory building in Manoa.
The most
outstanding feature of the modified H-Plan building is its stonewall exterior,
varying in thickness from 24 to 36 inches, and built with fieldstone quarried
from the site itself.
Kawaiaha‘o
Hall has been described as adapted "Mission Style," with its wings
forming wide courts protected from the force of the wind.
A
companion building nearly of the same design, first called Damon Hall and then
Wilcox, was built lower on the campus in 1910. Both buildings presented some
serious fire hazards and, indeed, Damon suffered a devastating fire in 1950 and
was not rebuilt.
Kawaiaha‘o
Hall, with its leaky roof and potential fire problems, was slated for
demolition in 1953 but was saved when it was discovered that it would cost more
to tear it down and build new than to keep the building.
By now
an overriding concern of the school's Board of Managers was "the
preservation and restoration of the majestic Kawaiaha‘o Hall itself." The
result was that in 1983 the building was gutted inside and extensively
remodeled to accommodate areas for music, performing arts, communication and
foreign language, as well as refurbishment of the library resource center.
The
renovation won an award from the American Institute of Architects for Richard
Kotake, AIA, a Mid-Pacific alum.
It is
interesting to note that Kawaiaha‘o Hall is not on the National or State
Registers of Historic Places. Maybe it should be with all its history and
grandeur.
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