John Silva has been fighting to keep his Kapalama home for 38 years.

At the end of the month, he'll be forced to give up and move out after exhausting his legal options in trying to buy the land under his home — one of 19 properties set aside in the 1970s to allow Bishop Museum to expand.

And his home on Kapalama Avenue, where he raised eight children, will be torn down.

"I don't want to see this go to the dump," said Silva, spreading his arms wide in his bright living room, lined with photos of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. "Too much beautiful living in this home."

The 88-year-old is one of 19 Kapalama Tract leasehold owners who failed in a bid to buy the land under their homes. He is also the only homeowner who refused to take anything less than his land. Of the original 19 homes, 13 have been returned to the museum after their owners took land buyouts or died. The five remaining homes are under lifelong leases.

While Silva will be out by the end of February, to make way for a setback in front of Bishop Museum, the homeowners in the other five houses will stay until they die.

Then, the properties will go to the museum.

Bishop Museum officials did not want to speculate on when it would have all the properties vacated. But most of the tenants of the remaining tract homes are elderly.

The 19 lots form a semicircle around the museum on Kapalama Avenue and Bernice Street and total about 2.5 acres — a welcome land increase for the largest museum in the state, which has been struggling with space issues for years.

Bishop Museum officials said there are no immediate expansion plans for the museum, but acknowledged that a master plan for the institution is under way and that the tract lots will be considered as the museum moves forward.

The museum sits on 14 acres in Kalihi, and boasts a collection of more than 24 million Hawaiian and Pacific artifacts, a staff of 250 and a range of exhibits. Some 300,000 people visit the museum annually.

"We have needs as far as land and space to do things," said Blair Collis, vice president of public operations for the museum.

The museum was established in Kapalama in 1889.

The existing homes around the museum sprouted up largely in the 1950s.

Silva's home, for example, was built in 1954.

Of the 13 homes on the Kapalama Tract returned to the museum, 12 have been torn down, including all of the Silvas' neighbors. Officials said the remaining home on Bernice Street is being used as a meeting space for the museum. Researchers are also using the home to store specimens.

The emptying of lots on the makai end of Kapalama Avenue helped make room for the Science Adventure Center at the museum, which opened in 2005 and cost $17 million.

Now, discussions over what to do with the rest of the vacant or soon-to-be vacant properties come as the museum is also working to revamp its existing buildings.

In 2006, the museum kicked off a $20 million project to restore Hawaiian Hall, the oldest building on the campus. There are preliminary plans to take on Bishop Hall next.

Neighbors of the museum speculate that the tract lots around the facility will be used for new buildings and more parking. There is also talk of widening Kapalama Avenue.

But the museum said none of those options are on tap now.

Collis said the only certain thing is that the Silva home must be torn down to comply with a city setback rule.

He said the campus has until March to comply with the ordinance.

The museum agreed to provide the setback, officials said, as part of re-evaluating its master plan in the 1990s. The city set the due date for the setback based on the 55-year lease Silva had, reasoning that if the home were vacated when the lease expired in September 2007, that would be plenty of time to have the lot vacant.

Silva contends the setback rule is a pretext to get him out.

"At least give us life here, then you can have it," Silva said, who contends he has been mistreated by the landowners and government.

Silva started his fight to get the land under his home in 1969. That year, he and 131 homeowners on lots surrounding the museum became some of the first to test the landmark state Land Reform Act of 1967. The law allowed leasehold owners to force landowners to sell them the land under their homes.

At the time, the land under the homes was owned by Bishop Estate, now known as Kamehameha Schools, which challenged the law. All but 19 of the leased fees were voluntarily sold by the estate in the early '70s, though. The excluded homes, including Silva's, were transferred to the museum in a land swap.

The lots under the 19 homes were not sold because the museum wanted the land for expansion.

The museum has also said that the homes didn't have to be sold under law because they didn't meet a 5-acre minimum for leasehold conversion.

Instead, the museum negotiated with the homeowners.

Jodi Yamamoto, vice president and general counsel of Bishop Museum, said Silva and others were offered money to surrender their leases. Others were allowed to stay in their homes until they died.

The lease buyouts were about $200,000 each.

Silva was also offered a land swap — a vacant lot in Liliha that would be returned to the Bishop Museum after the Silvas died.

The offers were made in 1993, after residents petitioned the state to condemn the lots.

Silva declined the buyout and a land swap.

Instead, he held out, keeping up the hope that he would get what he originally wanted — the land under his red and green home on Kapalama Avenue, which he diligently kept in top shape because he wanted to pass it on to his children.

Since Silva's 55-year lease for his property expired last year, he has been granted several extensions. The latest one — and likely last one — was accepted last week, and allows him to stay in the home until the end of the month.

He still doesn't know how he'll leave.

"I never gave up," Silva said.

Still, the Silvas are readying themselves to go.

Silva and his wife, 79-year-old Isabel, are packing up a life's worth of belongings, though they don't know how much they'll be able to keep when they move in with their daughter.

Three other people also live in the home — Silva's son, another daughter and her two children. They will also move in with family until they can find places of their own.

Isabel Silva said she can't imagine family gatherings anywhere but the warm, friendly neighborhood where she raised her children.

"To me, it's sad and depressing," she said.

Their home, known for its elaborate Halloween and Christmas displays, is still decorated for the holidays. They plan to leave much of the decorations up when they leave, to be torn down along with the home they thought they would die in.

Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.