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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, January 3, 2003

HAWAIIAN STYLE
Architect retires to home that's truly his own

By Wade Kilohana Shirkey

Noted architect Paul Jones' retirement home has 380 bedrooms and 362 baths on 16 acres. But when he designed it, he didn't know he was going to live there. It took him 40 years to move in.

He arrived in Hawai'i in 1950, fresh out of architectural school, license in hand. He realized that his University of Washington pumped out 40 to 50 new architects yearly, and surmised he had better move for professional reasons.

"Let's move somewhere people go for vacation," he suggested to wife Georgia, knowing that holidays might be scarce for a struggling new architect.

"Denver, Miami," he dreamed. When "I suggested Honolulu," said Jones, "the idea flew!"

Soon the couple was adding money to a jar labeled, "HONOLULU OR BUST!"

He quit his job in Seattle on a Friday and was "home" in Hawai'i by Monday.

He had had never flown in a commercial airliner and knew nary a soul in his strangely attractive new home. After a 10-hour flight, he landed at 8 a.m. in Honolulu with wife and two small kids in tow to a sense of "love at first sight."

By 10:30 a.m. he had scored a shave at 'A'ala Park and, through a referral from a mutual acquaintance, a job, with noted architect Pete Wimberly, now of Waikikian Hotel, Canlis and Coco Palms hotel fame.

Under Wimberly's tutelage, it wasn't long before Jones became known as Hawai'i's "Church Architect," designing, by the end of his career, many, if not most, of Hawai'i's United Methodist Churches, the distinctive First Presbyterian Church and Kona Surf Hotel, Susannah Wesley Community Center, and with the Army Corps of Engineers, the Hale Koa Hotel.

By the end of the 1950s, the Mainland Methodist Conference cast an aspiring eye on some 16 mauka Windward O'ahu acres for one of its senior living residences.

And, for the architectural designer of what would become today's Pohai Nani Good Samaritan Retirement Community, they cast that same appreciative eye toward Jones. The airy, 14-story, island-comfortable facility of 180 apartments and 25 garden cottages opened in 1963. Jones was a partner with the firm Lemmon Freeth Haines & Jones Ltd., now Architects Hawaii Ltd., when he designed the community.

Oriented to take advantage of Hawai'i's cooling windward trades and Kane'ohe's spectacular view, it soon became known as "Kane'ohe's High-rise" and premiere retirement community.

Over the years, he paid unofficial, niele visits to his creation to see how things were maturing.

"These trees were just little fellows," back then," he said one day recently.

"Our foresight 40 years ago was good," he said modestly. "I have to say I'm glad the landscaping and layout works well (now, 40 years later)" — especially since it had to be designed to be wheelchair-friendly. It was as good as I could make it.

"(We) designed (this) to be comfortable to people who aren't as 'athletic' as they'd like to be," he said diplomatically. That recently came to include him.

Now, with kids grown, and needing the assistance of a cane — "I got to falling down," he said — Pohai Nani again came into his radar screen. Recently, he and Georgia packed up and picked up — and moved in.

In his 52 years of architectural design, Jones had designed only two homes for himself, one the Wai'alae-Kahala home in which he raised his kids. And, of course, Pohai Nani.

Fellow residents have discovered the original designer of their home in their midst. He has even been chronicled in the center's newsletter.

"I got busted," he joked, but added quickly: "I'm (still) kinda proud of (this place)."

And his children had the sense of deja vu when they first saw their parents' new home. They noticed many similarities with the Dad-designed home in which they had grown up — soaring cathedral ceilings, an airiness taking advantage of Island breezes, an abundance of light — and they immediately sensed a comfortable familiarity. It was just like home.

Should be after 40 years.

The Advertiser's Wade Kilohana Shirkey is kumu of Na Hoaloha O Ka Roselani No'eau halau. He writes on Island life. Reach him at 525-8090 or wshirkey@honoluluadvertiser.com.


Correction: Architect Paul Jones was a partner with the firm Lemmon Freeth Haines & Jones Ltd., now Architects Hawaii Ltd., when he designed Pohai Nani Good Samaritan Retirement Community. A previous version of this column was unclear.