Mansion dismantled

One of the last vestiges of Japanese billionaire Genshiro Kawamoto’s odd legacy in Honolulu is disappearing from Kahala Avenue, as a once grand mansion is taken apart piece by piece and mostly put up for sale as part of a reuse and recycling effort.

The seven-bedroom beachfront house, once called an exquisite masterpiece, suffered from Kawamoto’s neglect as well as damage by vandals. Still, it is yielding some fine, sometimes dated gems for Re-use Hawaii, the nonprofit contractor deconstructing and reselling most of the structure, from its framing lumber to decorative trim.

Items include a 4-foot-high safe from the 1890s, German-made Poggenpohl kitchen cabinetry from the 1980s, a distinctive copper-paneled roof and ash wood baseboards, stair railings, window trims and door frames.

There are also five whirlpool spa tubs, slabs of marble, cedar paneling from a sauna, a custom wet bar with a brass sink and Italian-made stainless-steel appliances.

"We’re picking it apart by hand," said Quinn Vittum, co-founder and executive director of Re-use Hawaii.

Deconstructing the Kahala mansion began about three weeks ago and will take seven weeks. A crew of five to seven is doing all the work.

Vittum said the home at 4581 and 4585 Kahala Ave. is among the biggest residential jobs handled by the company, which was established in 2007 and has completed roughly 350 projects.

Re-use Hawaii has taken apart other notable homes, including one owned by late Hawaii entertainer Don Ho, though this one stands out for its craftsmanship as well as the notoriety of its former owner. Kawamoto caused a stir on Kahala Avenue over the last decade for crudely breaking down walls, filling in swimming pools and letting million-dollar properties slide into disrepair.

Masaya Uesugi, another wealthy Japanese businessman, bought the property in 1987 for $4.9 million and built the roughly 8,700-square-foot home a year later for an estimated $2.6 million.

Uesugi was head of Kyoto Tsushinki Groupe, whose subsidiary Century Airlines USA Inc. paid $10 million in 1990 to acquire the Hawaii luxury aviation services business founded by flamboyant resort developer Christopher Hemmeter.

Vittum said the quality of the 27-year-old home is extraordinary. "They did not spare any expense," he said.

Brandon Tsutahara, team leader on the deconstruction project, said details put into the Kahala mansion are especially impressive. "Of all the projects I’ve done, this house has some of the nicest craftsmanship," he said.

Descriptions of the property as part of sale efforts in 2000 and 2002 called the estate an "exquisitely built and well maintained masterpiece" and "exquisitely detailed by the finest Japanese/European craftsmen and designers."

Kawamoto bought the estate on about 1 acre of land in 2006 for $9.7 million. It was among about 30 homes on Kahala Avenue he acquired over several years for about $180 million as part of an announced "charity project" to house Native Hawaiian families in need and create art museums and gardens open to the public.

Kawamoto provided three homes to Hawaiian families rent free, and began the garden work on two sites made up of several consolidated parcels by arranging dozens of statues that included pagodas, lions and nude nymphs.

Some observers, especially neighbors, wondered whether Kawamoto was trying to devalue their properties and encourage them to leave so he might continue his acquisition spree in one of Hawaii’s most expensive residential neighborhoods.

Kawamoto’s Kahala project came to an abrupt end after authorities in Japan arrested him on charges of tax evasion in March 2013. Kawamoto was barred from leaving the country, though he has claimed through an associate that he repaid the taxes overlooked by a subsidiary of his commercial real estate business in Tokyo.

In late 2013 local real estate investment and development firm Alexander & Baldwin Inc. bought Kawamoto’s 30 Kahala properties and four in Windward Oahu and on Maui in two deals for a combined $128 million. The sale amounted to at least a $50 million loss for Kawamoto.

A&B has sold 21 of the Kahala properties for $123 million through the end of June, and has nine left, including what soon will be a vacant lot at the site of the mansion Uesugi built.

The city, for property tax purposes this year, pegged the mansion’s value at $2.4 million. A&B said it decided to clear the lot for "health and safety reasons."

The house had been broken into and vandalized while owned by Kawamoto. Interior walls were heavily tagged with graffiti, as were some kitchen cabinets and appliances.

Two stained-glass windows facing the ocean are broken and won’t be salvaged by Re-use Hawaii.

In the grand entry room, a glass chandelier with light shades resembling floating leaves once shined brilliantly high above the floor, but today is broken and entangled in rope that appears as though it may have been used as a swing.

"That was a bummer," Vittum said of the damaged fixture.

Re-use Hawaii doesn’t yet have an estimate of the value of materials it will harvest from the home. For instance, the safe is being researched before it is priced for sale. The more than a dozen Poggenpohl cabinets were priced from $15 to $40 apiece, and a few heavily tagged pieces were free to shoppers at the company’s Kakaako facility.

The company also isn’t sure it can successfully remove some items, such as ceramic tiles.

Typically, Re-use Hawaii can make use of 70 to 80 percent of a home, including items it resells and materials it sends to be recycled, such as wiring and plumbing pipes. Things that aren’t recycled or resold include drywall, stucco, carpet and fiberglass insulation.

Vittum said 600,000 tons of construction debris is dumped in Hawaii landfills annually. He added that keeping some of that out of the waste stream is great but that reusing materials also reduces the need to produce more new materials, which in the case of lumber involves cutting down trees, milling and transportation that affects the environment.

"It’s important for people to think about that," Vittum said, explaining that reusing a ton of lumber prevents the release of 60 pounds of greenhouse gasses.

The expense of deconstructing a home can be comparable to traditional demolition. Re-use Hawaii charges a property owner for the work, which often is more expensive than traditional demolition, though not always. However, the property owner can claim a tax deduction for the value of reclaimed materials donated to the nonprofit.

For the Kahala job the cost of the work was $83,310, which compares with $10,000 to $15,000 for a typical home taken down by Re-use Hawaii.

Vittum said factoring in a tax deduction often makes deconstruction more economical, though the work takes longer and doesn’t generate immediate savings, which can be a factor for homeowners and commercial property owners opting for traditional demolition and landfill expansion.

"We’re really thrilled about A&B’s support of our mission," Vittum said, adding that A&B previously retained Re-use Hawaii to deconstruct three other, less extravagant homes previously owned by Kawamoto.

After the latest job is done, A&B plans to sell the lot. No asking price has been determined.