Holdout fighting lonely battle against museum

By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer

John Silva looks over his lease agreement with Bishop Estate. He was once offered a new lot if he agreed to move. Trouble was, the land would be forfeited when Silva and his wife Isabel died. His answer? "I said up your wrinkles. I'm comfortable here." Photos by Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

Silva says he plans to stay put until his lease expires in 2007. He's not sure where he and Isabel will go after that.

Silva's house on the corner of Bishop Museum's front lawn is known by many for its elaborate Halloween and Christmas decorations.

Silva, 85, was once part of a large group of Kapalama homeowners who in 1969 became some of the first residents to test Hawai'i's Land Reform Act of 1967 by trying acquire the land under their leasehold homes from Bishop Estate.

Today, Silva is the sole holdout — the only one of 132 Museum Park Tract homeowners who never settled with the estate or the museum, which acquired the land under Silva's house and 18 others in a 1973 trade with the estate now known as Kamehameha Schools.

"He's going to be the last," said departing neighbor Ed Yamamoto, who is giving up his lease and home after recently moving to his sister's house in Kane'ohe.

Hawai'i, unlike other states, used to have vast concentrations of homes on leased land, because much of the private real estate in the Islands was owned by a few large landowners unwilling to sell property.

Silva and other Museum Park Tract homeowners tested the landmark 1967 law that allowed the leasehold owners to force landowners to sell them the properties under their homes in certain circumstances.

The law was vehemently challenged by Bishop Estate and other landowners, but was upheld by a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court decision that led to thousands of voluntary property sales. A city ordinance in 1991 provided for lease-to-fee conversion of residential condominiums.

Local real estate attorneys estimated that of 50,000 or so leasehold single-family residences, probably 90 percent of homeowners bought their leased fees over the last several decades.

Bishop Estate owns the bulk of the remaining residential leased fees, about 5,000 properties, and they are available for sale.

But Silva's case is a reminder that for a few, acquiring the land under their homes hasn't been possible.

In Silva's neighborhood, all but 19 of the 132 leased fees were voluntarily sold by the estate in the early 1970s. The 19 were excluded because the museum wanted the land for future expansion, and because the property, fronting the museum along Kapalama Avenue and Bernice Street, didn't meet a 5-acre minimum for conversion under the law.

Over the years, Silva's house has become more isolated as most of the 18 neighboring homes were acquired and torn down.

"You had Ushiroda, Criston, Mamac, Ogata, Lum, Horvat ... " said Silva, naming his former neighbors who participated in the unsuccessful fight to buy the land under their homes.

Eventually they were bought out by the museum. But not Silva. "They want me out," he said. "I turned them down."

For its part, the museum has tried to reasonably treat its tenants over the years. In 1976 the museum agreed to freeze lease rent at $500 a year after residents feared they wouldn't be able to afford increases.

The museum also made buyout offers to the 19 homeowners in 1993 after a group of residents petitioned the state in 1989 to condemn the lots.

In that deal, homeowners received different proposals depending on their age. The offers were generally for about $200,000 with conditions for residents to leave, stay until 2007 when leases expire, or live in the home until they die.

Eleven residents accepted in 1993, but Silva and other neighbors refused the buyout, declaring they should be able to buy their land like they sought in 1969.

"What they're doing is they've had us in a financial real estate straitjacket for 24 years," museum lessee George Horvat said in a 1993 Advertiser interview.

"Most of us are old and tired of this whole thing," Silva said at the time.

A museum spokeswoman said four more homeowners accepted offers in 1994. The museum later acquired homes of two more residents, including Horvat, who died in 1997. Yamamoto is arranging to transfer title of his house to the museum.

"I was comfortable over here," Yamamoto said of his faded and peeling green house with a severely leaning carport on Bernice Street not far from Silva's house. "It's maybe for the better."

Silva, however, remains passionate about the lasting injustice as he sees it, but he added: "I got no fight already."

Local real estate attorneys said it is prohibitively expensive for a single homeowner to condemn the leased-fee in a single-family property, especially with only a few years left on the lease.

The last deal Silva rejected was one in which he said the museum offered to give him a nearby Liliha lot on which to build another house. But upon the death of him and his wife, Isabel, the museum would take the property back.

"I said up your wrinkles," John Silva said. "I'm comfortable here."

John and Isabel Silva moved into the 3-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath house about 50 years ago, and raised eight children who have given them 14 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

The redwood house, painted barn red outside and a pale green inside, recently began showing more of its age, as Silva decided not to paint the exterior as he used to every few years.

"I don't worry about taking care the house too much because it's going to the bulldozers," he said.

Of all the home improvements, including a rental extension above the carport, perhaps what Silva will miss the most is the smorgasbord of fruit and vegetables and the decorative plants he grows on the property.

The exotic hibiscus that Silva enjoys showing Japanese tourists who pass by on their way from the museum and lilies from the Big Island, where his father ran a coffee farm, give him pleasure.

A few patches of parsley grow like weeds on the back lawn. There is also liliko'i, lemons, limes, chili peppers, papaya, cabbage, sweet potato, squash, eggplant, chives, roses, carnations, string beans, tomato, breadfruit and orange.

"When I get eggplant, all my neighbors tired eat eggplant," Silva said. "Cabbage and rice with pork — oh, boy, good stuff. The papaya coming, oh, the buggah sweet. See this breadfruit? Just like butter.

"I've put in so much," he said. "I'm not in no hurry to move."

Silva said he plans to stay until his lease runs out in 2007, though he's not sure where he and his wife would go then.

Residents also may be sad to see the Silvas leave, because during the holidays their house has been an attraction for thousands of people who come to see Isabel Silva's decorations.

A museum spokeswoman said the institution has no particular plan for the property including and around the Silva house, an area that has long been slated for possible expansion.

In November, the museum broke ground on part of its additional land at the makai end of Kapalama Avenue, where some of Silva's neighbors once lived, as part of a $40 million Science Learning Center scheduled to open in December 2005.

Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8065.