Wood-designed Wilcox Library stands out with stately facade

When it was built in 1924, the Albert Spencer Wilcox Memorial Library in the center of Lihue was a standout for a couple of reasons. First, there weren’t any other substantial buildings surrounding it, except the stodgy Kauai County Building. Second, it was a relatively formal structure for Lihue, which is still mostly a country village.

It is not known how much of the design was directed by the well-established Wilcox family, its benefactors, but the library certainly makes a statement even today.

If newcomers stand at the entrance on Rice Street, they are faced with a formal Beaux-Arts facade. It is stately and some have said more appropriate for buildings in large cities such as San Francisco or even Boston.

But circle around the building and one sees at the sides and back a high-pitched roof and walls of rusticated stone separated by strips of concrete. "The stones are laid in horizontal bands almost like the courses of a brick wall," according to architect Jim Reinhardt, who wrote about the building for the book "Pohaku."

This treasure of a historic building was designed by architect Hart Wood, who had a major impact on the built environment in Hawaii. At one time he was even a partner with the famed architect Charles W. Dickey, and together they designed the much-heralded Alexander & Baldwin building in down­town Honolulu. But according to Glenn Mason in the book "Hart Wood: Architectural Regionalism in Hawaii," this high point "also signaled the demise of the partnership …"

Nonetheless, Wood went on to design and build many tasteful residences and numerous iconic public buildings in Hawaii and the Bay Area. In the latter his work can be seen in, among many, the Masonic Temple at the Civic Center, sections of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition near the Presidio and the 14-story Santa Fe Building, all in San Francisco.

Hawaii was another story. During his brief partnership with Dickey, who was raised on Maui and had strong connections to the power elite in Hawaii as a member of the kamaaina Alexander family, Wood worked on many important projects in the islands. He brought his design talent to the Anna Rice Cooke residence in Makiki Heights that became The Contemporary Museum, the Christian Science church on Punahou Street, the Gump Building in Waikiki, the Chinese Christian church on King Street, the Board of Water Supply administration building on Beretania Street and its pumping station on Pacific Heights, and many more.

On Kauai alone, Wood’s work included the Wilcox Memorial Parish Hall, the restoration of the Wai‘oli Mission House in 1837 and Mission Hall in 1841, Lihue Union Church and, of course, the library.

In the Hart Wood book, the library is called "a bold combination of neo-classical elements and new design ideas that bridge two stylistic worlds."

The description continues: "The Beaux Arts design of the entry may be viewed as an attempt to address Classical designs of the other buildings of the civic center area. … Hart Wood used the native lava rock in a new, distinctive way in the library and exalted it as a major design element. Although the rear elevation is somewhat awkwardly designed, the combination of rubble courses with concrete window trims, water table, and string courses was very successful."

This beautiful stonework was the creation of Sakayu Yamamoto, who worked for several years for one of the Kauai sugar companies. His skills developed to such a level that he was soon approached to build a certain stone wall. A 1963 newspaper interview said, "He did so and since that time it has been his unique trade, utilizing the abundance of lava rock about the island." Yamamoto was a character who said in the same interview, "All this time, never sick — one day had stone in my eye."

A new library was built in Lihue in the late 1960s. Luckily the community pressed to save the old Wilcox building which, in a wonderful example of adaptive reuse, became the Kaua‘i Museum. Today this outstanding historic building houses the lively museum that features educational services, island exhibits, a permanent collection and archives.