Rusti, the Honolulu Zoo's popular orangutan, sits in his hammock gazing toward a new enclosure 20 times bigger than his current cage, just weeks away from moving in and meeting a female orangutan named Violet who will share the new, privately financed home.

City Enterprise Services Director Sidney Quintal said Violet was to have traveled from her home at the San Diego Zoo to Honolulu this week until paperwork slowed the effort. Now Violet is expected later this month.

After a month in quarantine in the new quarters, Violet could be joined by Rusti before year's end, Quintal said, hopefully providing a storybook ending to a tale of a life lived alone in captivity, most of it in small cages without so much as a tree.

Violet's arrival is critical to Rusti's move to the large habitat.

"In the primate world, it's better to have the female go in first," Quintal said.

The new orangutan enclosure has gone from good to great, said zoo general curator Peter Luscomb, and he's excited about the changes for one of the zoo's most popular residents. The big pen awaits some landscaping, drainage and a few other finishing touches, he said.

Once they're both moved in, Rusti and Violet will have access to a climbing structure with a series of hammocks, telephone poles, ropes and metal poles to climb and swing on as well as a big banyan tree and two-bedroom sleeping quarters.

The new home has been a long time coming, and it took several groups working together to make it happen.

The 25-year-old Rusti is owned by the Los Angeles-based Orangutan Foundation International, which has paid nearly half of the $625,000 for his new digs. The foundation had transferred Rusti to Honolulu in 1997 after he moved from a private zoo in New Jersey that was considered unacceptable.

Even though people have been talking about moving Rusti out of his "temporary" cage for eight years, various plans to move him fell through until last year, when private donors joined with the city.

Mayor Mufi Hannemann said the public-private support for Rusti is making his new home a reality.

"I think Rusti is a prime example of what we need to do to make the zoo a first-class facility," he said.

After the solitary kind of life he has led, Rusti has become a symbol of sorts that people want to reach out to.

"Rusti has become our folk hero," Hannemann said.

Quintal said the city was ready to send a handler tomorrow to help transport Violet from San Diego — 2,511 miles away — to Honolulu. Then officials learned that for security reasons the handler would require a passport to make the trip, and that delayed Violet's arrival until the end of the month.

"It's some kind of security requirement I don't understand," said Gary Slovin, president of the Honolulu Zoo Society.

Like many zoo visitors, Quintal is clearly moved by the 350-pound animal. He recalls sitting in on Rusti's root canal operation months ago and seeing the powerful animal looking vulnerable. Quintal held a big, black, leathery finger in his hand and was awed.

"I made a commitment to give him the best that we can afford," Quintal said.

He credits the Honolulu Zoo Society for managing the charitable effort and coming up with at least $275,000 to help build the enclosure. Orangutan Foundation International donated $300,000, with other donors making up the rest.

Slovin said the two keys to success have been the society's willingness to manage the project locally and the city administration's help and cooperative attitude.

Luscomb said the project has been aided by the generous support of volunteers, the society and the city. He said a contractor had estimated the cost of painting the enclosure's curved fence at more than $20,000. With the volunteer labor of society members, the cost dropped to $2,500 for painting supplies, he said.

Slovin said a fundraiser last month for Rusti brought in about $90,000, which will help to pay for many of the enclosure's climbing features.

And another society board member donated the 1.5-inch-thick glass for the enclosure's huge viewing windows.

"There's virtually no taxpayer money spent on this," Slovin said.

The enclosure's curved fence is designed to keep the orangutans safe and secure, Luscomb said. However, orangutans are intelligent and ingenious and some have been known to escape.

The zoo need look no further than Violet's home in San Diego to find a famous example of an orangutan that executed a series of well-known escapes. That zoo still includes a Web site photo tribute to an orangutan named Ken Allen, "the late great escape artist," who died of cancer in 1990.

So the Honolulu Zoo has a series of other protections that can be added to the enclosure if necessary.

"Our next line of defense is to put a hot wire up there," Luscomb said of an electrified line that would discourage animals from touching the top of the fence.

The zoo also could add slippery sheet metal to further discourage climbing. Both measures are used at other enclosures.

Luscomb said the zoo also is considering the inner well-being of the orangutans. Zoo officials plan to partner with a Brigham Young University-Hawai'i study of the animals' adjustment to their new home and each other.

"We will be taking urine samples and monitoring their stress levels," Luscomb said.

Kona resident Hilda Vitales was visiting the zoo yesterday from the Big Island. She made a point of stopping to see Rusti, one of her favorite animals.

She recalled that on her previous visit four years ago, there was a lot of talk about moving Rusti out of the small cage. Since then, much has changed for her family. She was pushing 2-year-old Lyle in his stroller, but it didn't look like Rusti's life was any different.

"I'm surprised to see him still in the little cage," she said.

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.