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Collapsed chapel
to be rebuilt

By Mary Adamski
Star-Bulletin

An Amazon Construction crew has completed what nature began, demolishing the small wooden Maemae Chapel in Nuuanu that collapsed Friday.

The Rev. Kaleo Patterson of Kaumakapili Church offered a blessing yesterday before work began at the site, which has held a Protestant chapel since 1863.

Henry Maunakea, a Kaumakapili Church volunteer, said about a dozen people from the "church family" gathered for the farewell to the 62-year-old building at 405 Wyllie St.

A renovation project was about to begin and the contractor was due to deliver lumber the day after the building collapsed, Maunakea said.

"We are going to try to regroup and rebuild. We are keeping the stone wall base of the building intact." He said it contains an old cornerstone.

Maemae Chapel was built as an extension of Kaumakapili Church in Palama. The building that collapsed was built in 1937, the third structure at the site.

Maunakea said efforts are being made to find another Nuuanu location for the Korean Jael Presbyterian Church, which met in the chapel. There is also a cemetery on the site.

"We retained the bell. The contractor's machine brought it down gently. It rang when it hit the ground and we all got all chicken skin," he said.