8-acre Pavilions Estate
Location, Location: Kauai, Hawaii
March 1, 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.; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc(); "8-acre Pavilions Estate")
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.
advertisement
