Former Kohala KAPAAU, Hawaii >> Tommy Tinker, president of the North Kohala Merchants Association, used to look at the abandoned, collapsing Nanbu Hotel across the main street of Kapaau from his own building.
eyesore now
supports community
The rehabilitated Nanbu Hotel
restores pride in North Kohala
with thriving businessesBy Rod Thompson
Star-Bulletin"The tin was blowing off the top of it. If cars were coming down the street, they had to dodge it," he said.
Prakash Flynn, who now runs a jewelry shop in the building with her husband John, used to be afraid to park in front of the old hotel for fear that it would collapse on her car.
The weight of the second story of the building was making the ground floor windows bulge outward toward the street, Flynn said.
Then in 1992, Mike Gomes, vice president of North Kohala landholder Chalon International of Hawaii Inc., casually asked if there was a way to save the old Nanbu Hotel.
"From that day on, I went at it all the time," said architectural restoration expert Quinlan. A native of Ireland, he restored buildings in Europe -- "any building over 400 years old," he said -- before arriving in North Kohala in 1988.
John Flynn had his doubts. "I thought it was an absolute joke," he said. "No one could fix it up."
Like John Flynn, the community was initially skeptical, although volunteers eventually helped him clear trash from the building.
In 1998, Quinlan met the current leaseholder, Neal Price, at a Rotary meeting. They got agreement from the Hori family, which owned the building, and made plans to save it.
Quinlan did the legwork needed to put the building on the National Register of Historic Places and thereby get tax breaks.
No records show when the building was first erected, but it existed as early as 1898, Quinlan said. In 1917, Ayataro Nanbu bought the hotel and expanded it with his wife Toei.
In the 1930s, Mrs. Nanbu died of cancer in Japan. Mr. Nanbu made the hotel flourish. "During the war years, Ayataro Nanbu would always give the first round on the house for all soldiers and officers," Quinlan's National Register submittal said.
Nanbu died in the 1960s, and the hotel closed.
After Quinlan's National Register submittal, he and Price parted. Among their differences was that Quinlan wanted restoration of the building as a hotel. Price wanted "rehabilitation," meaning a new use, turning old hotel rooms into offices.
A civil engineer, Price had a major job. Epoxy was injected into termite-eaten posts to save them. "You would be surprised how much epoxy there is in this building," he said.
Some termite-eaten pieces were beyond saving.
"We had to make special tools to make the crown moldings," he said.
As to the window frames: "They were like cardboard," he said.
He had to build a new subfloor under the existing floor to support the weight of the Morgans' books.
But the building was finally fixed, and merchants moved in Oct. 16, 1999."I'm absolutely, tremendously delighted," Tommy Tinker said. "It's just an absolute boon to this town."
Those are kind words from a man who had to postpone indefinitely his own expansion plans because of the competition.
Quinlan says rents in the rehabilitated building go for about $1 a square foot. The cost of a new building would require rents of at least $2.50 a square foot, he said.
Retail space in Kapaau was going empty before the Nanbu was restored, John Flynn said, and now there's a waiting list.
But not all the business flurry is due to the Nanbu. "We're becoming Yuppieville here," Tinker said.
He explained that retirees and younger people with independent income are moving into the district.
Price, who did the construction work, illustrates how computers are changing how America -- and North Kohala -- works.
For example, Price owns a tool factory in Washington state, but he runs the company from offices in the former "party room" of the Nanbu.
Jan and Frank Morgan from Boston, owners of Kohala Book Shop in the rehabilitated building, are happy to sell local kids books for as little as 25 cents. Running the largest used-book store in the state, they also use the Internet to offer books like a 1784 edition of Captain James Cook's journals for $4,500.
Still, the Nanbu is supporting North Kohala. Prakash Flynn recently took a class in business management, along with 14 other North Kohala residents. Fifteen people in a small town is a pretty good number interested in business, her husband said.
"We've heard it over and over again, the pride that something was done for local community," Jan Morgan said.