By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

It's fun to hear stories about famous people of the past because the stories say so much about Our Honolulu when they lived. Tim Yee of Diamond Head is loaded with stories about Henry J. Kaiser, for whose empire he was real estate manager.

Kaiser slept three hours a night, worked seven days a week and wouldn't take "no" for an answer.

"You didn't work for Henry Kaiser very long if you disagreed with him," said Yee. "He'd get an idea, his architect would do a sketch and they'd start building without a permit. My job was to figure out how to make it work."

In our age of environmental impact statements and governmental restrictions, consider how Henry Kaiser went about dredging Kuapa Fish Pond to make Hawai'i Kai Marina 40 years ago.

"He shipped in a dredge that was used on the Great Salt Lake in Utah," said Yee. "It was too big to haul on the highway, so Kaiser had it loaded on a barge and towed to the beach off Hawai'i Kai. I asked him how we were going to get the barge and dredge across Kalaniana'ole Highway to the pond. He said the dredge would cut through the beach and the highway and the barge would float across into the pond.

"What about traffic on the highway?" said Yee.

"We'll do it overnight and repave the road by morning as good as new."

That's what happened. I asked Yee if they got permits for any of this. He said it was done before anybody had time to object. Kaiser's geodesic dome on the Hawaiian Village Hotel grounds was done the same way, overnight, said Yee.

Then there was Kaiser's condominium idea.

"Henry Kaiser built the first condominiums in the U.S. right here in Hawai'i," Yee said. "I read a story in the paper one morning that Kaiser was going to build condominiums to sell for $29,950 per unit with mortgages at 7.5 percent interest."

When Yee got to work he said to Kaiser, "Mr. Kaiser, that's a terrific idea. How are you going to do it?"

"That's your job," said Kaiser.

At the time, nobody knew what a condominium was. Hawai'i didn't have a condominium law. Yee had to get one passed in the Legislature in order to get a building permit, then cajole a finance company into providing mortgages. Soon condominiums became popular.

"Henry Kaiser loved big machines," said Yee. "At 4 o'clock in the morning in New York he called me after seeing a piece of equipment at an industrial products show. It was called a 'cam,' about the size of a semitrailer truck, tires 6 feet high.

"This thing scooped up dirt faster than a steam shovel. Henry said it was a bargain at a million dollars. He wanted to buy half a dozen. At that time houses in Hawai'i Kai weren't selling all that well. But you didn't tell Henry Kaiser he can't do something.

"Mr. Kaiser, why don't we try those new drag lines for 30 days. If they don't work, we'll get the cams. That satisfied him."