Joseph Sohm/Visions of America/Corbis
Location: North Shore, Oahu
July 1, 2007
Oahu’s Diamond Head and Kahala
neighborhoods—known for better or worse as the Beverly Hills of Hawaii—are
storied playgrounds for the rich and richer. For decades, homebuyers have
plopped down ungodly sums for a slice of paradise, underneath the world’s most
famous volcanic crater.
For those looking for the next big thing, a distant and much
less hectic shore beckons. About an hour’s drive away, the North Shore—the
stretch of coastline from Kaena Point to Kahuku Point—remains much as it has for
decades: a funky hinterland populated by surfers, societal misfits, artists and
urban refugees. Surf shops outnumber supermarkets; clapboard shacks with junker
cars in the front yard adjoin luxurious Balinese-style mansions. A big night on
the town means grabbing a burger and beer. Even now, a Honolulan heading to the
North Shore for the day will tell a friend, "I’m going to the country."
Top: The Sullivan Estate, offered at $29
million. Bottom: The view from a $3.9 million Pupukea home. (Click images to enlarge); function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
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"It’s just a quiet, unpretentious lifestyle. Hollywood people
live out there and go into Haleiwa [the North Shore’s sleepy town] and nobody
bothers them," says native Honolulan Mary Worrall of Mary Worrall
Associates/Sotheby’s International Realty.
The laidback ethos is driven by surf culture. From October to
March, this is cowabunga country. The huge swells that pound the coast are a
siren call for the surfing elite, with beach bunnies, hordes of tourists and
ESPN camera crews in hot pursuit. Names like Pipeline—home to many pro surf
contests—Waimea Bay and Sunset Beach are legendary in surf lore. If you are
awakened by the crash of waves, you know you bought in the right neighborhood.
In the spring, most of the tourists head home, the crowds thin
in front of Matsumoto’s world-famous shave-ice shop, and life along the North
Shore settles into the easygoing groove that has seduced many a mainlander.
Author Paul Theroux, pecks his keyboard from his blufftop aerie, down the road
from where surfing legend Barry Kanaiaupuni, "BK," waxes his board before going
out. Terry O’Quinn, the shiny-pated John Locke from Lost, much of
which is filmed on the North Shore, shortened his commute by several thousand
miles when he settled into a home here. And folk-rocker Jack Johnson (a former
champion surfer) pads around in flip-flops on the North Shore, not far from
where he grew up.
Despite its considerable charms, real estate on the North Shore remained relatively cheap for decades. After 9/11, "everything changed," recalls Pete Arnold, a fine homes specialist with
Prudential Locations in Honolulu. Vacation homebuyers got the jitters about
investing in a foreign country and looked instead to the familiarity of the 50th
state.
"Hawaii became a very safe, but still exotic destination,"
Arnold says.
Residential real estate money poured into the state. Much of it
headed straight to the North Shore. In a few years, Arnold says, the North Shore
went from being one of Hawaii’s most affordable areas to one of its least. Last
year, the market stabilized. With few signs that it will dip any further before
climbing back up, it’s time to go shopping.
"The North Shore is probably the best buy in oceanfront
property in the state," Worrall adds. Compared to Southern California, prices
here are downright affordable. New construction fetches about $3 million to $5
million for three bedrooms and two baths on the beach; smaller lots go for $1.5
million to $2 million, with prices on properties within a few blocks of the
beach hovering just under $1 million. On the North Shore’s western edge, Turtle
Bay Resort (controversial among slow-growthers) has beachfront villas for $2
million to $4 million, alongside George Fazio and Arnold Palmer golf courses.
When you’re ready to head back to the mainland, a helicopter will swoop you to
the Honolulu International Airport.
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