Honokaa has received national recognition for buildings in its historic downtown, with three Mamane Street sites recently named to the National Register of Historic Places, a division of the National Park Service.
It’s a step forward in an effort to boost Honokaa’s economy by drawing attention to the town’s historic and cultural resources.
The Honokaa People’s Theater and the Hotel Honokaa Club were placed on the list in October.
Ross Stephenson, a coordinator for the Historic Honokaa Town Project who is former keeper of the Hawaii Register of Historic Places, said the group had received word this week that another structure, the Ferreira Building, also was formally added to the register.
A fourth structure, the S. Hasegawa Building, is still in the approval stage.
The Historic Honokaa Town Project has been working on the nomination process — finding appropriate buildings and submitting proper paperwork — for three years.
“This is a really good way, (with) cultural tourism, to create jobs and preserve what’s important,” Stephenson said.
In the case of Honokaa, he said, “It’s the plantation era that I grew up in and my wife grew up in. We want to have our children appreciate that.”
Honokaa “is a walkable town, and it’s very, very much intact with this special kind of plantation architecture,” Stephenson said. “You can’t really find it anymore.”
Each of the three Mamane Street buildings was built in the same time period, between 1927 and 1930. The buildings will soon receive display placards detailing their respective histories and role in the development of Honokaa.
Jory Watland, who owns the Hotel Honokaa Club with wife Annelle Lee, said it was the history of the building that prompted him to buy it back back in 1994. He’d never been to Honokaa before.
“I like history, I like old communities,” Watland said. “That’s where I grew up, in a small community on the mainland. Our family was very involved with the historic preservation of things.”
The hotel “has been a project for us all these years, and I think we’ve enjoyed it,” he said.
Lee, who grew up in Hilo, said the first iteration of the Hotel Honokaa Club was built in 1908.
“Growing up, there were quite a few places called ‘club’ that don’t necessarily mean membership,” she said.
The name stuck when the hotel moved to its current location on Mamane Street. For decades, it was owned by the Morita family.
In addition to being a lodging facility, the hotel, with its enormous dining room and two bars, also was a popular meeting place. In its early days, the bars were supported not only by the locals in Honokaa, but those in nearby Waimea, a dry town.
“We’ve tried to keep everything as it was,” Watland said. ”It’s interesting that the people in this town, and the owners of the businesses, have committed themselves to maintaining these things without any federal assistance or state assistance.”
Commercial buildings that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places are eligible for tax breaks on repairs and restorations. Residential buildings are eligible for reductions in property taxes.
Both types of buildings gain access to federal and state grant money.
Stephenson said the long-term goal is to create an entire historic district and give Honokaa even more of an economic boost.
Hopefully, he said, the effort will “help people realize how special small town Neighbor Island communities are.”
Tawn Keeney, owner of the Honokaa People’s Theatre, knows exactly how special that community is. A recent fundraising campaign that raised more than $60,000 helped pay for a new digital projector at the theater, enabling it to continue screening movies after Hollywood began to phase out 35 mm film.
“It (the theater) deserves all the energy that can be found to put into it, because it’s such a great spot,” Keeney said. The historic designation was “worth celebrating.”
Keeney bought the theater in 1991, taking over ownership from the Tanimoto family (he had leased the building for several years prior). As with the purchase of the Hotel Honokaa Club, the timing coincided with the closing of the sugar plantations.
“He mentioned, ‘I’d really like to own that old theater downtown and refurbish it,’” Honokaa High School music teacher Gary Washburn recalled. “I thought that was a pipe dream, like everybody has, but, by golly, he ended up owning it and refurbishing it and everything.”
As the theater became more of a focal point in the town, it also became known for more than just its movies.
One of the first projects Keeney embarked on was removing some of the original seats so a dance floor could be put in. The floor eventually became a portable stage, home to everything from the annual Hamakua Music Festival and the annual performances of Washburn’s students. The band program is considered one of the best in the state of Hawaii.
“It just totally added a new perspective to student learning, to be able to go to that theater and be under the pressure of real theater lights,” Washburn said. Before they used the theater, students had to play in the school’s gym, a cavernous space that didn’t lend itself well to artistry.
“Having that theater, and having it available to all the different things that have come through, really adds life to the community,” Washburn said.
Keeney’s daughter, Phaethon, manages the theater and opened a coffee shop in the lobby, a move Keeney said had helped keep the building vibrant throughout the day.
He described the work restoring and preserving the theater as a labor of love.
“I think the theater has been kind of a growing energy in Honokaa,” he said. “In fact, all of Honokaa … in a lot of ways, Honokaa is kind of transforming. It … feels like it’s more vigorous than it used to be.”
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
