Japanese magnate Genshiro Kawamoto didn’t leave a very good impression on his former neighbors in Kahala, but at least his properties won’t be making a deep impression on Oahu’s landfill.
Two of Kawamoto’s former properties, one of which is believed to have been his Hawaii residence, have been deconstructed by the nonprofit Re-use Hawai‘i, which has salvaged lumber, light fixtures and other items to put on sale at its Kakaako warehouse. And although many items have been sold off already, there should be plenty of solid building materials left.
"You could tell there was investments into the quality of (the construction)," said Quinn Vittum, co-executive director of Re-use Hawai‘i. "We should be able to recover 70 to 80 percent of the whole volume."
The homes were part of a $98 million, 27-property sale announced in September to local real estate owner Alexander & Baldwin. Kawamoto was dogged by allegations of tax problems in Japan and became a controversial figure in Hawaii with headline-grabbing moves such as renting pricey homes to needy families and erecting a garden of classical European sculptures in the residential area.
Plenty of local homeowners have already been savvy to the possibilities of the properties. Some chandeliers — one is 58 inches in diameter — were sold before deconstruction began, and some of the ritzier items sold within a few days. But So far, there have been no takers for the granite plant stands being stored in the garage of one of the homes. "They’re superheavy," Vittum said. "Someone put one of them on a dolly, and then they just gave up from there."
As of Monday, there were still some elegant light fixtures, including a smaller chandelier and some alabaster lampshades, on sale. Also on sale were several vintage table lamps, identifiable by their twin-bulb light sockets, and a desk that is believed to have been used by Kawamoto himself, since there were bills and other documents addressed to him found inside.
Re-use Hawai‘i, which doesn’t deal with such high-end items very often, knew how to get attention for the materials.
"It’s not exactly our usual market," said Selena Tarantino, co-executive director of Re-use Hawai‘i, "so we called everything from the house the ‘I Love Las Vegas’ collection. On our tag it would say ‘I love Las Vegas — a gold-dipped shower head.’
"The place was like the Versailles of Hawaii."
One of the homes, a 5,500-square-foot mansion that took about a month to take apart, rendered a lot of high-quality lumber, from basic 2-by-12-foot studs to pricey Glulam beams — 2-by-6-foot beams glued together and capable of supporting extra-heavy rooflines. "That’s something we don’t see very often," Vittum said.
The otherstructure, a board-and-batten home with a mansard roofline, will provide good-quality plywood for exterior walls and some weathered but still beautiful cedar shake roofing.
The lumber from both houses, which will be de-nailed before sale, was in excellent condition, Vittum said. Much of it is termite-treated Douglas fir. "There wasn’t a termite in the whole place — well, maybe a little in the doors," he said. "Basically, we look for houses that have at least 50 percent of the volume being in good condition."
In well-kept homes, like the Kawamoto properties, Re-use Hawai‘i tries to salvage everything except carpets, asphalt roofing, drywall and plasterlike substances such as stucco.
Seemingly useless metallic objects, like metal strips that are used to frame drywall or old wiring, are recycled. "Anything that’s metal we can segregate out, which adds up tremendously," Vittum said. "It will be 40 to 50 yards of scrap metal."
Metal items like closet tracks and window frames are kept intact and resold. "We tend to say, ‘Let’s try reuse first,’ because that’s the ultimate form of keeping the material whole," Vittum said. "A lot of people actually design around what they find at Re-use Hawai‘i, which is kind of a different way of building. It’s nice because people find what they like and then work it into their project."
Deconstructing a home saves space in the landfill and the energy needed to create building material. An intern at Re-use Hawai‘i did a study on the energy needed to create building materials and found that every ton of lumber that did not go to the landfill kept about 60 pounds of greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere.
"That’s because wood has to be milled and harvested, trucked to a plant, kiln-dried," Vittum said. "There’s all this embodied energy that’s put into the lumber."
It is also advantageous to the property owner, who receives a tax deduction for the donation. Although figures for the Kahala properties were not available, Vittum said a typical, 1,500- to 2,000-square-foot house usually has a donation value of $30,000 to $40,000.
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Re-use Hawai‘i is located at 200 Keawe St. Visit reusehawaii.org or call 537-2228 for information.
