COURTESY PHOTO Charles Wyndham Watson, pictured here with wife Poni, was a former president of the Hawaiian Dredging and Construction Co. Watson died on Saturday at 86.

CHARLES WYNDHAM WATSON /
CONSTRUCTION MANAGER AND ARTIST

Sculptor’s work
captured isle culture

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By Pat Gee
pgee@starbulletin.com

Charles Wyndham Watson did a lot of hammering and pounding on metal and stone.

The former president of the Hawaiian Dredging and Construction Co. helped build the Ala Moana Center, the Ilikai Hotel, the Aloha Stadium, the reef runway and other landmark structures.

As a sculptor, he decorated the islands with dozens of pieces, ranging from the dolphins adorning Sea Life Park to the helmets at Halekulani, that paid tribute to Hawaiian culture.

Watson died of congestive heart failure in Kaneohe on Saturday. He was 86.

His youngest daughter, Wendy Erickson of Kailua, described him as "a real working man who got down in the trenches with his workers, someone who knew their names and hung out with them after work. He didn't sit in an ivory tower."

"He worked his way up from a ditch digger to be president of one of the largest construction companies," Erickson said. "Yet he was so creative and put so much into this island. ... He loved Hawaii."

Born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, Watson spent his youth in Los Angeles, worked as an apprentice carpenter during the Depression and won the California Welterweight Boxing championship in 1939. He studied engineering briefly in Santa Monica and came to Hawaii after serving in World War II to manage McNeil Construction in 1946.

He joined Hawaiian Dredging in 1950 as a general superintendent and retired from the company in 1980.

Millie Lee, his secretary for 20 years, said he had a good heart beneath his gruff exterior. "Everybody respected him," she said. "He recognized people for their hard work and rewarded them. ... Working for him was a pleasure."

Erickson said her father would work on his sculptures at their home in Dune Circle, Kailua, in spite of complaints from the neighbors about all "the hammering and pounding." He moved his family out of the district when his neighbors voted to close the public's right of way to the beach.

"He said the beaches belonged to everybody, Hawaii was meant for everyone," Erickson said. The sculptures he built after he retired were dedicated to symbols of the Hawaiian culture, she said, such as the fisherman with his net at the top of Kapiolani Boulevard, and the pueo (owls) at the American Cancer society.

But sometimes he would take the giant gears, crankshafts and other scrap metal from construction sites and turn them into sculptures, testament to a man who was as much a contradiction as the "Ferdinand the Bull" character in one of his favorite children's books, Erickson said.

"Ferdinand was this tough bull who didn't want to be in a bullfight; he wanted to smell the flowers," she said. "My father was a real fighter, but all he wanted to do was lie on the hillside and smell the flowers, look at the clouds and build his sculptures where no one could hear him and complain."

Several of his works grace their 3-acre home on a hillside in Lanikai, dubbed "Puu O Kale," which means "Charles' hill," Erickson said.

From that site the family will hold private services and release a red helium-filled balloon because "The Red Balloon" was another favorite story that he read to his children. Erickson said the balloon will contain a love letter from his grandchildren and a bit of his ashes.

The rest of the ashes will be scattered around the sculptures on top of the hillside, she said.

Watson is also survived by his wife, Poni, of Lanikai, sons Kerry of Colorado and Mark of Lanikai, daughter Cathi Sanders of Honolulu and seven grandchildren.