Architecture by Group 70 Text by Joshua Tompkins Photography by Laurie Black MALUHIA AT WAILEA OFFERS THE ONLY single-family residences in the area, with five lots fronting the white coral sand of Mokapu Beach and another nine terraced behind it. All residents would have panoramic ocean views of Kaho‘olawe and Lana‘i, and they’d enjoy the same sunny, relatively dry climate and gentle mountain breezes that have made Wailea one of the world’s top resorts. But the hillside homeowners wouldn’t be able to step right out onto the beach. To keep those buyers from feeling like second-class Maluhians, PRM and Francis Oda, the development’s architect and the chairman and CEO of the Honolulu firm Group 70 International, decided to build a beach club. Situated on the shoreline and occupying the equivalent of a $10+million dollar residential lot (which means the development could have had 15 homes) the club gives hill dwellers a place to eat, drink and store their snorkels, kayaks, and other essentials. “The concept of the beach club was to create a sort of staging area or gateway for the non-oceanfront homes to have direct access to the ocean,” says Harte. “We have been successful marketing the entire project as a beach-front property.” The club, designed in a contemporary Hawaiian architectural style that matches the rest of Maluhia, is intended to be as unobtrusive as possible: Oda carefully positioned the two-story building to avoid blocking the ocean view from any home. The double-pitched roof is a custom blue-green tile that blends with both the sky and the surrounding landscape, while the stucco walls and coral stone columns evoke the alabaster beach just a few yards away. The floor is random quartzite. The pavilion opens onto a large lawn that leads to the beach; at the center of the lawn is a copper fire pit. The second story of the club is the apartment of the Maluhia concierge, who acts as a sort of host and manager for the entire development, fielding requests for personal training and concert tickets from residents and looking after their homes while they’re away. With the guiding theme of Maluhia being one of kipuka (an oasis), the club is its kahua ho‘olulu (a meeting place). There, all Maluhia residents can get together or bring guests for cocktails or dinner. “The idea was that Maluhia wasn’t just going to be a place where a bunch of unconnected people would have vacation homes,” says Group 70 Vice Chair Sheryl Seaman, “but that it would be a community.” Seaman designed all of the club’s furniture, most of which is Indonesian plantation teak. She began by sketching the pieces by hand, turning the club’s concept over in her mind to pin down the right motif. Because the nearest city is Kihei, a town famous for the namesake kapa (barkcloth) garment made by hand and worn by Hawaiians in cool weather, Seaman thought the subtle inclusion of traditional kihei patterns in the woodwork would be appropriate. She took her sketches to Jakarta, where she discussed her ideas with a furniture maker, hashing out joinery and scale issues. The maker generated computer-aided design files and e-mailed them back to Seaman in Hawai‘i for final approval, and four months after she had first put pen to paper, the finished tables and chairs arrived in crates. Seaman’s homage to kihei is organic and understated, showing up most directly in the chevron pattern adorning the armchairs and the coconut wood side table. Near the bar, where three koa paddles lean against the wall, is the club’s most dramatic kihei element: a marble mosaic commissioned by Seaman and based on a kihei by Hawaiian artist Pua Van Dorpe. The club anchors Maluhia’s luxuriant common areas. It is the climax of a brief journey that begins at the community’s front gate, where a waterfall fuels a stream that carefully sluices down the hillside. The flow is gentle and Zen-like in some places, rushing like river rapids in others, as it winds down the 80-foot elevation drop to the club. Each homesite, whether closest or furthest from the beach, takes advantage of this common element as its connector to the ocean. “We took what would have otherwise been another oceanfront lot and created a very special place, adding much more value to the balance of the project than just the value of the lot itself,” Harte says. Just how much credit the beach club can take for the success of Maluhia, which broke ground in 2002, is impossible to know, but 9 of the 14 homes have already been sold, with two recently completed houses getting snatched up after less than a month on the market. A little creativity and a lot of community spirit (not to mention design talent) have seemingly overcome the limited-access issue for the happy hillside Maluhians.