Forty years ago today, a dedication ceremony was held for a new community planned amid pineapple fields below Wahiawa envisioned for 16,000 homes.

Today, with all 16,000 homes of Mililani built and just eight left to sell, developer Castle & Cooke Hawai'i is designating its completion of Hawai'i's first master-planned community.

"This is a great celebration," Harry Saunders, company president, said in a ceremony yesterday. "This is a major chapter closing."

Mililani has a few more vacant parcels slated for in-fill commercial development, but residential construction is complete for the community that cost Castle & Cooke $3.85 billion to build and is home to about 50,000 residents.

The project on 3,500 acres also holds the historical distinction of first introducing in Hawai'i the concept of community association rules that provide for fining homeowners for unkempt lawns, visible clotheslines and other infractions.

Mililani also has been a model of how to make suburban development less like a bedroom community by integrating more amenities like recreation centers, parks, shopping centers and schools.

But because Mililani isn't a major job center, most employed residents travel outside the community to work, a mass commute that significantly contributes to O'ahu's chronic traffic congestion.

For better or worse, Castle & Cooke over the last four decades satisfied much of the demand for housing by O'ahu's expanding population along the tree-lined streets of Mililani where utility lines are underground and cul-de-sacs encourage neighbor interaction.

The company, one of Hawai'i's Big-Five companies that for nearly a century dominated commerce through agriculture plantations and other businesses, began planning Mililani — initially dubbed Waipio New Town — in 1958 and had an ambitious plan to turn its pineapple fields into fee-simple homes for the island's burgeoning middle class.

"It was an audacious thought," said Saunders, who joined Castle & Cooke in 1975 as a sales agent and recalled the challenge of convincing people they should move "way out in the middle of nowhere."

Callman Au, one of four original sales agents for Mililani, said the developer initially anticipated completing all 16,000 homes in about 15 years. "We had real difficulty," he said. "Mililani was unknown."

The first 112 homes were released for sale June 3, 1968, and sold for $25,000 to $37,000.

Au said most initial buyers came from Wahiawa. Today, 30 percent to 40 percent of buyers are from within Mililani, including third-generation residents, and home prices range from $600,000 to more than $1 million.

As part of the maturing of Mililani, pineapple farming was phased out over 20 years, the H-2 Freeway opened in 1976 and Hawai'i's first Wal-Mart opened in 1994.

When pesticide contaminants were found in Mililani's drinking water in 1983, residents pressured the state and the developer to fix the problem. Because of its actions, Mililani has a water purification system and became the only Hawai'i community to receive "All-America City" status from what is now the National Civic League.

Besides 16,000 homes divided between Mililani Town and Mililani Mauka, Mililani has 21 churches, seven public schools, two private schools, 19 parks covering more than 100 acres, seven recreation centers featuring six pools, and three major shopping centers.