Honokai Hale finally realizes its dream park
By Catherine E. Toth
Advertiser Staff Writer
HONOKAI HALE — Something happened from the time volunteers turned the first spadeful of dirt toward their goal of creating a place for their children to play until the project's completion:
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
The children grew up and moved out.
Honokai Hale residents Martha Makaiwi, left, and Barbara Carlos helped to get their neighborhood a park. After 30 years, Kamokila Community Park has been completed.
But that doesn't diminish the sense of accomplishment longtime residents feel after years of laboring with hoe and shovel on weekends, and later holding fund-raiser after fund-raiser to buy amenities for the park. They put in countless hours in a project that started in 1973 with a dream and a 6-acre field littered with boulders and kiawe trees.
There were small victories along the way — the baseball field was finished in 1982 — but now, 30 years later, the community finally has what it always wanted: a finished park, complete with a baseball field, volleyball and basketball courts and a community center.
Kamokila Community Park, just off Farrington Highway near Ko Olina Resort, sits on a plain overlooking Kalaeloa and the ocean beyond.
The park, which opened in 2000, recently received its final touches courtesy of the city: renovations to the basketball and volleyball courts, a 10-foot fence around the volleyball court, a dugout, picnic tables and water fountains.
The community will officially bless the park sometime this month.
"When I drive by and see kids playing basketball, I'm happy," said Barbara Carlos, 65, one of the original residents who was instrumental in getting Honokai Hale a park. "The park is being used for what we had wanted. It's a dream come true."
Martha Makaiwi, longtime resident and member of the Makakilo/Kapolei/Honokai Hale Neighborhood Board, said she fought hard for the nearly $400,000 of city money for renovations in a tiny community that is often off the city's radar.
"I feel very lucky," Makaiwi said. "It's taken awhile, but I'm pleased. It's a beautiful park."
Honokai Hale started with seven homes in 1964. There were no sidewalks or streetlights. And no park.
The community began to grow. People were lured to the secluded, 'ohana-style neighborhood near Nanakuli, where kids played baseball and football in cul-de-sacs and swam in the reservoir at the ranch across Farrington Highway.
Residents put on Halloween and Easter parties, organized Christmas parades, held dances for teens and bingo games for mothers.
"It was very family-oriented," said Gwen Young, 64, one of the last remaining original homeowners in Honokai Hale. "We were very, very close."
But residents worried when the children rode their bikes on Farrington Highway and threw baseballs too close to the handful of homes that made up the Leeward neighborhood.
They wanted a park.
But the city couldn't afford to help. So in 1973, Honokai Hale residents led by Carlos and her late husband, Jimmy, decided to build their own park. With the help of volunteers from the U.S. Army Reserve, they rolled up their sleeves and went to work, clearing the field loaned to the community for a park by landowner Campbell Estate.
Residents spent afternoons and weekends moving boulders and trees, serving lunch to the volunteers and later concentrating on fund-raisers — among them a carnival with a turkey shoot and pony rides — for amenities for the park.
"We worked so hard for this park," Young said.
The city did allocate nearly $400,000 of vision team money in 2000 for the recent renovations and continues to maintain the property.
"It's a shame that it's taken so long," said City Councilman Mike Gabbard (Wai'anae, 'Ewa). "But the good news is the park is a true testament that when citizens come together for the good of their community, progress can be made. Thanks to the persistence and the hard work of the residents of Honokai Hale, they have a wonderful park that everybody can enjoy and be proud of."
Over the years the park has become the only constant in a changing neighborhood.
The community now boasts more than 250 homes, and residents find themselves dealing with drug problems and street violence. They chase homeless people and late-night loiterers from the park, which has suffered from vandalism. The fence around the volleyball court was stolen once; the new fence has been cemented to its foundation.
While the children for whom the park was designed and built have grown up, others, of course, have taken their place. There aren't as many as there used to be, though, and the ones left shoot hoops and ride their scooters at the park. But many of them go to parks in Makakilo or Kapolei to play soccer and baseball.
The older residents walk around the field or sit on one of the four picnic tables under large shade trees.
For Isadoro Gabriel, the park is a source of community pride.
"We spent a good portion of our lives in this community," said Gabriel, 69, an original homeowner who used the park when he coached Little League. "We put a lot into this park."
It's just been a long time coming.
"My kids never got to play here, but my grandchildren do," Carlos said. "So it's serving its purpose."
Reach Catherine E. Toth at 535-8103 or ctoth@honoluluadvertiser.com.
