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BURL BURLINGAME / BBURLINGAME@STARBULLETIN.COM Queen Emma and Kamehameha IV built their summer home in cool, lush Nuuanu.

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Queen’s summer retreat
a Victorian oasis

Nuuanu, the mountainous corridor that channels the trade winds into downtown Honolulu, has always been a retreat for the alii of the islands. It's a bit cooler and rainier than the shore, and when Anglophiles Queen Emma Rooke and King Alexander Liholiho (Kamehameha IV) needed a place to be comfortable in their European clothes and practice British gardening, the then-secluded Nuuanu highlands fit the bill

The estate they established in 1857 was on a tract willed to Emma from her uncle John Young II, son of the English sailor who was a confidant to Kamehameha.

The home created by Young was a seven-room New-England-style cottage erected a decade earlier, and Emma and Alexander Liholiho named the place Hanaiakamalama after Young's ancestral home. It became the favorite retreat for the royal family and baby, Prince Albert, who died at the age of 4.

The royal couple added an "Edinburgh Room" in 1860 and decorated it in Victorian splendor.

The estate became known as a kind of bridge between Hawaiian and British cultures, and when Liholiho died in 1863, Emma stepped off the throne and retreated to the home.

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BURL BURLINGAME / BBURLINGAME@STARBULLETIN.COM A sundial keeps track of time just as it did in the past. Today, the royal Prince Albert home is maintained as a museum by the Daughters of Hawaii.

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That doesn't mean she was done with politics. In 1874 she was a candidate to succeed the throne when brother-in-law William Liholiho died, but the Hawaiian legislature chose Kalakaua instead. Irate followers gathered at the Nuuanu cottage, surged toward Honolulu -- with a fife and drum band, no less -- and rioted at the courthouse. Honolulu police were unable to control the riot, so U.S. and British troops aboard warships in Honolulu Harbor scrambled to quiet things down.

Emma died before she was 50, but managed to found the hospital that bears her name, as well as the Episcopal Church in Hawaii.

The site is owned by the state but leased to the Daughters of Hawaii as a historic site and museum.

It's a lovely site with a striking balance of inside Victoriana -- including the little canoe-shaped cradle -- and outside green lushness. Artifacts on display include Victorian furniture, Hawaiian cloaks and kahili, quilts and woodworking of the highest order.

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