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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, July 13, 2003

Move of aviator's home set to begin

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui Bureau

After more than five years on the drawing boards, the project that aims to restore and move the Maui home of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh is about to get under way.

Argonauta was the Maui home of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The home and a writer's cottage were built in 1970.

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The Historic Hawai'i Foundation will hold a private blessing, groundbreaking and dedication at Haleakala National Park in Kipahulu tomorrow morning.

In the coming months, both the small home Lindbergh dubbed Argonauta, as well as Anne Morrow Lindbergh's writer's cottage, will be disassembled and moved to a site next to the park's Kipahulu Visitor Center, about a mile away.

Together, the structures will be known as the Kipahulu Conservation Center and will house displays about Native Hawaiian and Hana history and conservation, including Lindbergh's role in helping the National Park Service acquire its Kipahulu lands.

Greg Marshall, Argonauta Project chairman and Historic Hawai'i Foundation vice president, said the ground for the new site has been cleared and excavation for the foundation will begin this week.

"We expect construction to be fully under way later this month, with the relocation to be substantially completed by October," Marshall said.

The park agreed to accept the structures as a donation, provided that all costs for moving and restoration, as well as an endowment for annual maintenance, are raised by the foundation.

Marshall, who with his wife, Melanie, bought the structures and donated them to the foundation, said $200,000 has been raised. He said nearly $500,000 is still needed for the move and the upgrades required to bring the buildings up to modern standards.

Argonauta and the writer's cottage were built in 1970. Designed by John Theodore Jacobsen, the house was built with 3-foot-thick lava rock walls in a design that merges the style of other Lindbergh homes with that of the Hawaiian 1850s-era missionary churches.

The Lindberghs had planned to retire to Maui and had vacationed there frequently, staying with retired Pan American executive Sam Pryor, from whom they acquired five acres to build their home.

In 1973, Charles Lindbergh was diagnosed with cancer, and he moved to New York for treatment. But when he learned he was going to die, he returned to Maui. He died in Hana on Aug. 26, 1974, and was buried in the Palapala Ho'omau Congregational Church cemetery near his home.

The Argonauta property was purchased by Mike Love of The Beach Boys and then by a New York couple, who had planned to demolish the structures in 1998. But that's when Marshall stepped in to lead the drive to save the home and cottage.

For details on the effort, visit the project's Web page at www.historichawaii.org/argonauta.html.