With its graceful sense of place, it is easy to miss the single thing that makes Hawaii’s state Capitol special.

It is not the lavish use of koa, the "Aquarius" mosaic or even the tilapia-filled broad ponds surrounding the five-story building.

Here’s the thing: Unlike any of the 49 other state capitols, anyone at any time of the day or night can walk into the Hawaii State Capitol. There are no doors.

Instead there is a welcoming space between Beretania Street and Iolani Place. With a special open house Friday, legislators are celebrating the start of the building’s construction in 1965.

When it was finished in 1969, then-Gov. John A. Burns offered this description at the dedication:

"In this great State Capitol there are no doors at the grand entrances, which open toward the mountains and toward the sea. There is no roof or dome to separate its vast inner court from the heavens and from the same eternal stars which guided the first voyagers to the primeval beauty of these shores."

The speaker of the House at the time, the tough-talking World War II GI Tadao Beppu, also picked up on the metaphor.

"It is a doorway and our obligation is to look through it," Beppu said at the dedication.

"Surely it will be a doorway open to all, regardless of status or station in life."

Fifty years is a long time ago, back when Hawaii was the newest state brimming with verve and economic potential.

In 1969, a house in Kahala sold for $52,500. The big paper in town, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, ran five pages of classified ads of available jobs. A state cafeteria worker was paid $381 a month and a county engineer earned $861.

Realtors now estimate that same Kahala home to have a value of $2.2 million.

But, the Capitol’s need to reflect openness in Hawaii government has not changed.

Local architect Frank Haines, who worked on the building along with San Francisco architect John Carl Warnecke, explained that one of the purposely designed features was that all 76 legislators’ office doors opened to broad public lanais. There was no back door.

"The legislators when they go to their daily sessions, they have to go through a space where all their constituents can meet them. That was a conscious decision," said Haines, who at 93 is still giving tours of downtown Honolulu architecture, including the Capitol, through the Honolulu chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Suzanne Marinelli, the long-time director of the Legislature’s public access office, recalled that it is the building’s subtle architecture that encourages open debate.

"It is the wide lanais where people can lean comfortably on the railings to have their conversations; the fact that most often you have to go outside to get to someone else’s office; the open, living sky as our ‘dome,’" Marinelli said.

"Other things are less obvious but still relevant — the lack of back doors in legislators’ offices, for instance."

That openness was still working this week when parents, lobbying for pesticide buffer zones, greeted Sen. Jill Tokuda, Ways and Means chairwoman, outside her office.

They sang songs and waited for two hours until Tokuda finally invited them in to discuss why she would not approve the bill.

Hawaii may still struggle to meet the spirit of openness our Capitol dictates, but as Burns said almost 50 years ago: "We invite all to watch our legislative deliberations … to share in our burdens and our self-sorrows as well as our delights and our pleasures … Come in! The house is yours!"

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.