IN THE FILM "The Descendants," a man portrayed by George Clooney bursts into a neighbor’s home demanding details on his wife’s affair.

"Who was he?" he yells, standing in front of an old upright piano.

His friends, standing before a large painting of a Hawaiian man in recline, sheepishly explain, "You might not be able to hear this right now, but she was lonely."

Real life at the historic Thomas Victor King residence in Nuuanu may not have been as traumatic, but in the decades since it was built, there has been plenty of drama. Like the time when the Richert kids decided to check out the antique bronze cannons their father had brought home.

"My brothers and I decided that what we really needed to do was shoot these cannons off," said Tiare Richert Finney, who grew up in the house and moved back in 1992 with her family to care for her aging mother.

Shooting batteries was fun, until the siblings ran out of the explosive they had been using and substituted something else.

"It was way too much and the cannon blew up. It blew these windows out. … My mom is sitting there, covered with glass. It blew the two instigators down the steps. We could have all been killed.

"My dad comes in and says, ‘You guys blowing stuff up?’"

Visitors can imagine those and other stories, as well as the scene from "The Descendants," on Saturday when the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation holds an open house of the nearly century-old home, which is listed on the state Register of Historic Places.

Visitors will be shuttled to the home from two pickup sites. Tickets are $50, $25 for foundation members.

The fundraiser includes a guided tour, silent auction and the opportunity to buy copies of "The Descendants" signed by author Kaui Hart Hemmings. Hemmings’ mother was a childhood friend of Finney’s.

"Kaui kind of grew up with me, Auntie Tiare, in this house," Finney said, "and I’m assuming she thought of this house when she was writing."

Finney’s parents, Dr. Thomas and Loretta Richert, became the third owners of the home in 1945 after renting it for several years. It was built in 1918 for Thomas Victor King, a businessman with the California Feed Co., who had the architecture firm Emory & Webb design the home.

Emory & Webb, in business for just 20 years, designed several local landmarks, including the Hawaii Theatre, the old Hono­lulu Advertiser building and the Hongwanji Mission Temple on nearby Pali Highway.

Though the home is considered colonial revival in style, it has plenty of island flavor. The entryway leads to the back veranda, creating an open, airy feeling. The upstairs has a hallway and tidy bedrooms on either side, but doorways connect the rooms to each other as well as the hallway, and inside screen doors allow air to circulate freely.

Outside, the lush gardens contain the vermiliads that Finney’s mother loved, and an auwai — part of an ancient Hawaiian irrigation system — enhances the tranquility of the scene.

THE home remains furnished with items collected through the decades by Finney’s parents, including original rattan furniture they got on Kauai when they first came to the islands in the 1930s.

Her father, a plantation physician, was provided a large but unfurnished home to live in. The couple went to a furniture dealer in Kapaa, who told them, "Take what you need and pay me when you can," Finney said. "They always talked fondly of that part of their life at that time, saying that was the best."

Visitors can view all the items seen in "The Descendants," since virtually no props were needed to make the house look properly kama­aina. Even those items have stories behind them: The piano, a Steinway upright, was rescued from the street by Finney’s mother and refurbished. It was playable for decades until a leak in the roof soaked it and ruined the felt hammers.

"It’s a boat anchor now," Finney said.

The painting of the Hawaiian man is by artist Russell Lowrey, a friend and classmate of Finney’s at Punahou School.

"I saw it in a gallery, and I thought it would be perfect for this room," she said. "When the movie people came in, they went, ‘Whoa, that’s beautiful.’"

Although upgrades have been made to the kitchen, bathrooms and utilities, Finney has taken care to try to keep the home in the same condition it was in as she was growing up. The veranda, created when the original lanai was enclosed in the 1920s, is the only major structural change ever made to the house.

Rooms like the full-size pantry are full of items collected by her family, while the library shelves display trophies won by her mother, who raced boats and cars.

"She was always very successful in a man’s world," Finney said.

Various items made of shells decorate the home. Dr. Richert "was a shell collector of some renown, and one of the nation’s finest," Finney said.

Though the home certainly has is a lived-in look, one doesn’t see evidence of the tricycle races she and her two brothers used to run inside the home.

"There are kid skid marks around here," Finney said. "There’s been a lot of living here."