Posted on: Friday, October 15, 2004
Catherine Sofos helped build development firm
By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer
The matriarch of the local Sofos family that helped shape decades of real estate development in Hawai'i died late last month after a long illness.
Catherine Sofos, who oversaw accounting and construction site work for the family firm Tasco Realty, helped build the first 100 homes on Wai'alae Nui Ridge above Kahala.
"They were the first ridge developers in East O'ahu," daughter Stephany Sofos, said. "They hired an unknown architect at the time named (Vladimir) Ossipoff. A lot of the old ranch homes with brick are standing today."
The daughter of Greek parents, Catherine Sofos also helped establish the Sts. Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Pacific in Honolulu. She was born in St. Louis and moved to Hawai'i in 1943 and worked as an auditor for the Navy.
In 1948, Sofos and her husband started Tasco and developed a two-story commercial building with six residential apartments on Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki that still bears the Sofos name.
After the Wai'alae-Kahala projects, Tasco helped arrange development of the Diamond Head Sands condo on Monsarrat Avenue, then got out of the business.
Thomas Sofos died in 1998.
Stephany Sofos, a local real estate consultant, said her mother inspired her to get into the business by encouraging her to do whatever she wanted. Her sibling Steve Sofos is president of his own commercial real estate brokerage and management company Sofos Realty in Honolulu.
Survivors also include sons Tom and Nicholas and a granddaughter.
Services will be at 10 a.m. next Friday at Sts. Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral.
Catherine Bassilika Sofos, who died Sept. 29 from complications of pneumonia at 82 in Honolulu, was a fixture at Island construction sites in the 1950s as she helped her husband, Thomas, develop 257 of 750 homes in Kahala.
Catherine Sofos
