Charles Montague Cooke gave three mission houses — dating from the 1820s and 1830s — to the Hawaiian Mission Children's Society in 1907. Cooke had lived in what's now known as the frame house as a child. Today those buildings are the core of the Mission Houses Museum, run by the 154-year-old Hawaiian Mission Children's Society.

Part repository and conservator of artifacts and documents from 19th-century Hawai'i, part missionary-descendant locus (the nonprofit HMCS also is a genealogical society) the Mission Houses Museum has languished as a cultural institution.

Last year it received about 5,000 visitors, as compared with Bishop Museum's 275,000 visitors. Granted, Bishop Museum is much larger. However, as Honolulu's oldest existing Western buildings, holding a one-of-a-kind collection, and sitting conspicuously in the middle of the city, Mission Houses might expect to hold a larger place in local lives and the tourist experience.

That's what the museum thinks. Since executive director Kimberly Kehling left in April 2005, the Mission Houses, with Marilyn Reppun as acting executive director, has undergone a 10-month strategic planning process that was guided by two prominent Mainland museum consultants, Harold and Susan Skramstad. The pair also has worked with 'Iolani Palace and the Hawai'i State Art Museum.

"We brought them in to discuss our future and what the next evolution of our organization ought to be," says Robert L. Becker III, who became president of the museum's board of trustees in April.

The conclusions of the planning process led to the hiring of David de la Torre as executive director. De la Torre, a 16-year O'ahu resident, left his post as director of the Hawai'i State Art Museum after three years to take the Mission Houses helm.

"We had a number of terrific Mainland candidates who also brought very strong credentials, but we thought the combination of David's strengths and his being part of the community already put him heads and shoulders above the rest," says Becker. "The position was vacant for a year and a half. We wanted to go into picking a new leader with a galvanized board and a real understanding of the problems to be solved, the questions to be answered and how best we can serve Hawai'i."

The museum also filled a new position: Andrea Booth, most recently alumni relations officer for the American School in Japan, is the organization's first society relations director.

De la Torre starts his new job Dec. 18. In preparation he's now on a tour of historic-house museums in California, "to gather information on what places are doing these days with public programming," he said in an interview on Tuesday.

He looks forward to the challenge of raising Mission Houses Museum's profile.

"Any cultural organization has a cycle when there's an up period and for whatever reasons there can be blips and downswings," said de la Torre. "A history organization can be a hard thing to sell. ... But (the museum) has everything going for it in terms of the importance of it as a historical site and its visibility on King Street. What I'm excited about is that through the interview process I was hearing a common theme from the HMCS trustees — they want to bring new life to this site, and rightfully so. The sky is the limit on what we can do in terms of interpreting history and providing dynamic new programs and exhibitions that will excite our community and visitors."

He hopes to organize special exhibitions that are visual interpretations of history. "I want to do things within the museum, and find alternative spaces. I like to circulate things out and about" said de la Torre.

Is de la Torre, whose expertise lies in art (he was also associate director of the Honolulu Academy of Arts from 1991 to 2002), interested in Hawaiian history? "Absolutely. You can't live here without wanting to understand what that history is about. Interpreting history and having individuals discern history is very important for anyone who wants to learn the truth. We have to be good stewards in terms of interpreting all of the aspects of history in terms of making history rich."

When asked how he plans to approach possibly touchy interpretations of Island history, he replied: "It's about discerning all aspects of history and not leaving out unpleasant parts of it. But it's also not dwelling on that which we know. It's understanding it completely in detail so we can go forward and have a better society and better understanding and better place to live. That's the opportunity that I see."

De la Torre cites successful cultural institutions, such as New York's Ellis Island Immigration Museum, whose missions are "driven by telling a story, whether that story is altogether positive or has dark sides to it. ... We can't sweep things away. We have to understand so that we're better prepared to deal with the present. We need to be inspired by history so we can create new histories."

Reach Lesa Griffith at lgriffith@honoluluadvertiser.com.