Many regard the yards of their homes as blank canvasses, waiting to be filled with grass and trees and assorted plants, embellished with the occasional swing set or monkey bars, or, among the swellegant set, a statue or fountain as a centerpiece. There was a lady in Foster Village some years ago with a full-size Venus de Milo dead center of her tiny yard. It might not have been appropriate, but that plaster-cast Venus doubled as a navigation landmark, and so neighbors approved.

Pikers! Japanese billionaire-businessman Gensiro Kawamoto's on-off-again demolition of the former Hemmeter estate on Kahala Avenue is all part of a master plan to create a “;garden museum,”; or so he told reporters several months ago. The oceanfront property has been sitting idle since before last Christmas, with bulldozing and landscaping partially completed.

What drew us to the site were queries from readers who wondered about the large “;pagoda”;-type structures dotting the property—more than a dozen, quite large, along with cast Japanese garden lanterns, horses and Buddhas. Was this property going be a religious retreat?

The weedy center of the estate has become a farm of towering concrete or stone monuments called stupas.

The items scattered about the yard are primarily Buddhist, East Asian monuments, noted Paul Lavy, assistant professor of South and Southeast Asian art history at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. “;The square, multilayered forms are imitations of wooden stupas; they have the upturned eaves typical of many Japanese stupas.”;

Other items, he said, are imitations of stone lanterns common to Japanese and Korean Buddhist temples, symbolizing the wisdom and enlightenment of Buddha.

“;I don't know much about the contemporary use or 'appropriation' of these kinds of objects—which traditionally appeared exclusively in the context of Buddhist temples—as lawn ornaments or in terms of patterns of contemporary consumption,”; added Lavy.

In Southeast Asia, his area of specialty, similar objects are mass-produced for temples but rarely for private homes. “;Stupas have funerary associations. ... Their meaning and use in a secular context would likely vary considerably from those who associate religious values with them to those who want decoration for their 'Japanese' gardens.”;

Kawamoto couldn't be reached for comment. “;He's impossible to get a hold of,”; groused neighbor Richard Turbin, who's been trying for some time. Turbin, an attorney, believes that Kawamoto is violating the neighborhood's pre-existing Bishop Estate covenants that insist homes be kept presentable.

Of Kawamoto's many homes in the neighborhood, only three are occupied. Turbin and others claim that Kawamoto is creating a ghost town of abandoned, decaying structures in the midst of one of Oahu's priciest 'burbs.

Massive boulders flank a demolished stone wall on the Kahala Avenue side of the property. Neighbors recall Kawamoto directing placement of the multiton boulders himself. That was when the billionaire last took out demolition permits in 2007, and no one has seen him there since.

Brian Joy of Big Rock Manufacturing was intrigued enough by a description of the site to visit it himself. He thinks the porpoise statues dotted around the perimeter are left over from a previous tenant, likely Chris Hemmeter.

The other monuments are of a type generally used sparingly in gardens, to evoke Asia. He said they appear to be carved granite, not cast concrete, in which case they are likely imported from China and quite expensive. “;We have done a couple of items for Kawamoto—some bronze statues—but nothing as large or numerous as these.”;