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Big Isle builder KUKUIHAELE, Hawaii -- On the wooded grounds of a former plantation manager's mansion near Waipio Valley, a Big Island builder is planning a small resort consisting of treehouses.
plans banyan-like
treehouse resort
A 32-acre project would
have as many as 40 units in
concrete and steel 'trees'By Rod Thompson
Star-BulletinBuilder Tom Heers wants to construct as many as 40 treehouses, complete with kitchens and bathrooms, 14 feet off the ground on concrete and steel structures that look like banyan trees.
Although the supporting "trees" would be artificial, they would be set in a 20-acre grove of natural trees planted in 1911.
In honor of the former plantation town that would be home for the project, Heers calls it Trees of Kukuihaele.
Heers, 46, from a family of building contractors, came up with the idea during a quiet moment while vacationing with his family on Kauai early last year.
"When I get by myself, my wife says I'm always dangerous," he quipped.
Within three months they had located the Kukuihaele property, sold their Salt Lake City home and moved into the plantation manager's home with their two school-age daughters. There are also two grown daughters and a son.
They bought a portion of 113 acres that had been zoned for a small but luxurious Amanresort in 1994. After developers obtained zoning, that resort went unbuilt.
Heers' 32-acre project would only partially overlap the Amanresort area. The remainder is proposed for downzoning.Besides home construction, Heers has built three other imaginative guest accommodations in Idaho and Utah.
In 1993, Heers and others took a 100-year-old building in downtown Salt Lake City -- used as a jail, a brewery and an office building during its lifetime -- and turned it into what Heers calls a theme hotel.
Todd Crawford, manager of Anniversary Inn, as it is now called, said the hotel has a normal lobby. But walk down a hallway, open a guest room door, and you'll find yourself inside a log cabin. Another door leads into a pirate ship.
And the most popular of the rooms are the ones conceived by Heers, the ones with "Swiss Family Robinson" treehouses, said Crawford.
Standing in the center of a spacious room with a 20-foot ceiling is a giant tree trunk supporting a treehouse.
Heers said he got the concept of theme hotels from the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, Calif., 24 years ago. Each room is decorated like a different country.
Ideas jumped into his head, but financing did not jump into his pocket. "It took a long time to convince bankers I could do this," he said.
His first project was just two units. Kukuihaele will be his fourth.
Unlike the indoor Anniversary Inn, the outdoor Kukuihaele setting will permit artificial trees 50 feet high.
Each unit would have three "hales," or small houses, including a central kitchenette and living room and two separate bedroom and bath units connected by aerial walkways.
Heers plans to remove as few of the existing trees as possible. "I hate tearing out trees," he said.
As soon as he arrived, he started meeting with Kukuihaele residents, telling them about his ideas and asking for their proposals.
They said they did not want more traffic on the town's one narrow street, so Heers will create a new drive leading to the bypass road around the town.
No cars will drive among the trees, guests getting around instead in golf cart-like vehicles.
The majority of community reaction was favorable. Roy Toko, from an old Kukuihaele family, wrote to the County Council, "That would be something to bring back some jobs that were lost when the plantation closed."
Hidemi Miyaski, 72, wrote, "Most of the people must now travel 30, 40, 50 miles to work in the hotel industry in the Waikoloa area." One tired worker fell asleep while driving home recently and was killed, he said.
But Ku Kahakalau complained to the County Council that the project makes no effort to integrate the Hawaiian culture into it.
With the assurance of area Councilman Dominic Yagong that the majority favor it, the Council voted 8-1 to give the project preliminary zoning approval.
The project will cost $8 million over a 10-year period and will eventually employ as many as 40 people. But a limited county water supply will hold the first phase to half that size.
Heers hopes to have the first unit built and occupied by the end of this year.