Location, Location: Kauai, Hawaii

Therese Bissell

03/01/2002

Kauai, the northernmost and oldest of the Hawaiian islands, is experiencing a sea change. For more than 150 years, sugarcane was the basis of its economy and culture, but since the mid-1970s the industry has been in steady decline, forcing the recent closure of all but one of Kauai’s old sugar plantations. An era over, a new era underway: For the first time since the missionaries settled Hawaii (locals quip that they came to do good and ended up doing well), parcels of vast and verdant ex-cane fields have come on the market.

In 2000, Amfac/JMB, the second-largest private landowner on Kauai, ended its long-standing sugar operations, selling off more than 17,000 acres of prime farmland. Suddenly available property means real estate action—particularly hot now on Kauai’s north and northeast shores, a tropical wonderland that had its cinematic close-up in South Pacific, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Six Days, Seven Nights. Film producer Peter Guber bought the 172-acre Papaa Bay Ranch for $7.25 million; Honolulu-born Bette Midler purchased 1,400 central acres from Amfac for $4.5 million; writer Michael Crichton, whose Jurassic Park trio was filmed near Hanalei Bay, has also succumbed to the charms of the north shore. (Click image to enlarge)

But Kauai’s brightest star is her favorite digi-tech son, Steve Case. The chairman of AOL Time Warner is a kamaaina (Hawaiian native) and said to be Hawaii’s first homegrown billionaire. His late-2000 purchase of the once royalty-owned Grove Farm Co. for $26 million and his acquisition last year of a big Amfac tract for $18 million bring his island holdings to some 40,000 acres. Improved infrastructure and new crops are Case’s near-future aims.

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Facts & Stats

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Understating It: Kauai is known as the Garden Isle, which barely describes this lush, mythical place of tropical rain forests, waterfalls, an extinct volcano and pink sand beaches.

Rainfall: Kauai is wet, but 70 percent of the rainfall occurs at night. The north shore gets an average of 70 inches per year; the northeast is a bit drier at 40 inches. (Click image to enlarge)

Tourism: The wholesale variety that sustains Maui, Oahu and the Big Island is nonexistent here; ecotourism is expected to rebound to pre-September levels.

Simple Pleasures: By law, no building can be taller than a coconut tree; deeds are often written in Hawaiian and a property line is defined as “from that rock to this stream.”

Paradise Style: According to Los Angeles–based interior designers Illya Hendrix and Tom Allardyce (310.659.8721), recent émigrés to the northeast shore, the smartest residential interiors are modern versions of plantation and Asian design, or their firm’s signature fusion of the two.
Appeasing the Gods: Strict low-density zoning since 1972 has made the entire island a virtual green belt. Kauai County has begun a 20-year water conservation program; Peter Guber gave an easement on his estate for a public trail to Papaa Bay. (Click image to enlarge)
NEXT: Progressive agriculture (rice and soybean hybrids) utilizing new technologies will define the 21st century; shrimp farming, says the state, represents Kauai’s “aquaculture potential.”

Realtors to Call: Sleeping Giant Realty (Sotheby’s affiliate), 808.245.8831 or 800.247.8831, www.sleepinggiant.com;
Coldwell Banker Bali Hai Realty, 808.826.7244 or 800.404.5200, www.balihai.com; Tom McCloskey, 808.822.4343; Michele Hughes Development Co., 808.828.2862 or 800.820.2862, www.secretbeachkauai.com.