Decorative scrolling surrounds the 11-foot high doors at the entrance to the Masini home.
Photos by Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
Those childhood longings became the force behind his adult achievements. He is the creator of several top syndicated televisions shows, including the vicariously pleasurable "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." And today Masini is the proud owner of a $10 million-plus "dream house."
Masini is a trim, balding 65-year-old with disarming charm and patience, a self-designed trophy house 1,000 feet up on Hawaii Loa Ridge and an eye-catching former actress-turned-interior decorator for his wife.
Spend a few minutes with Masini and you get the feeling that whatever Al wants, Al gets.
April and Alfred M. Masini.
"You focus on a goal, look at various ways to achieve it, understand the details, then spend the time and commitment to accomplish it."
Masini knows focus and commitment, the most recent being the "hellish" 32-month construction for his 16,000-square-foot house - 10,000 square feet under roof - and pool built on three lots.
He wanted the 11-foot twin front doors and entrance way with its indoor fountain to provide a perfectly centered view of Diamond Head. When the foundation twice was built off center, Masini ordered it redone, much at his own expense.
He decided that the two original lots he bought for his house weren't big enough to accommodate the swimming pool with its 12-foot waterfall. So Masini called the owner of the adjoining vacant lot who had paid $500,000 for the property. Masini wrote him a check for $750,000.
Their pool, which has a 12-foot waterfall, overlooks the city.
"I've always had a bedroom and an office but never a personal gym. Now I do."
He also wanted April, his wife of 22 months.
The couple first met years earlier when Masini was married to his first wife and April was dating a former pro football player. After Masini was divorced, he bumped into April and told her he was no longer married.
She also was unattached and the couple has not been separated since.
One of the few things Masini didn't get was the ultra-modern home he originally designed, which April described as "horrible."
"She can be very convincing," Masini said.
Besides "Lifestyles," Masini created the syndicated television shows "Entertainment Tonight," "Star Search," "Solid Gold" and the biographical series "The Start of Something Big." All reflect their creator's own personality: a frenetic pace and a preoccupation with glamour and glitter.
His new home, which he named Hi'ilani - "in the arms of heaven" - was designed as "a personal resort, a mini hotel," he said, based in part on Maui's Grand Wailea where he and April were married. The home's exterior is "modern Mediterranean;" the interior "classic Louis XV, a 21st century Versailles," Masini and April agree.
The home will be the setting for a party honoring Hawaii luminary Sheila Watumull on Oct. 26.
What will $10 million get you?:
A 600-square-foot portecochere topped with a huge Italian antique chandelier with matching sconces; a four-foot blue marble mural in the shape of a sunburst in the foyer's center; a pair of two-story, white silk draperies bordered with hand-embroidered and hand-painted pale blue roses framing the left and right entryway windows.
A Versailles-inspired, twin-curved, wrought iron staircase that cradles a marble fountain; hand-carved French and Modillion plaster mold; elevator; and wall designs in the master bedroom inspired by Marie Antoinette's boudoir at the Trianon.
Just three bedrooms. Two guest bedrooms are on the first floor with its own kitchen and home theater. The main living room - 36 feet square - kitchen and 1,600 square-foot master bedroom are on the second floor. (The monthly electrical bill is more than $2,000.)
Masini and April both admit that two people really don't need such a large home. "I really wanted to have our personal living area on the second floor and to do that you have to have a first floor," Masini said, laughing.
"Now with April's interior designing we have something unique. You might say we got carried away."
Masini is now ready to work on a project that may prove tougher than building Hi'ilani: Creating a successful Hawaii-based television show. But Masini invents television programs through an almost scientific process with no pretensions about "art."
"All my ideas have come from studying what's not on the air, to look for what's missing. If historically there was an appetite for a certain type of show - or if the appetite is apparent through other media - then I try to fill the need."
His ascent began 42 years ago at the CBS library in New York where he worked as a film editor, earning $58 a week. Two years later he joined an advertising sales firm, not out of interest in the work or because of any apparent sales ability, but because he deduced that ad sales would be the most lucrative arena for a calculatingly self-designed career.