It wasn’t easy, but an Australian billionaire has cleaned up one of the biggest messes on Kahala Avenue made by Japanese billionaireGenshiro Kawamoto.

It took 10 months, 48 dump truck loads, close to $1 million and city building permit headaches, but Lindsay Fox has createda private park over more than a half-acre with attractive street-front landscaping that stands in sharp contrast to what hesaid was essentially a dump — or rubbish tip as they say in Australia — topped by pagoda statues.

"This was like converting a rubbish tip to a botanical gardens," Fox said.

Fox, 77, founded what became Australia’s largest privately owned trucking and supply chain company, Linfox, which he startedin Melbourne with one truck in 1956. His net worth is pegged at $2.4 billion by Forbes and he has owned a beachfront homeon Kahala Avenue since 1975.

The retired Fox spends two or three months a year in Hawaii with family and was repulsed by what Kawamoto did to many of theroughly 30 homes he bought about a decade ago along Kahala Avenue.

Kawamoto broke walls down to their foundations, filled in swimming pools, felled trees and demolished some houses as partof a plan he described as making the street less of an exclusive enclave for mansion owners. Kawamoto also let three NativeHawaiian families live in three of his homes for free, and began creating what he said would be gardens on his two biggestproperties containing homes he said would become art museums open to the public.

Many people, including residents from outside Kahala and tourists, regarded the statues — a mix of lions, nude Grecian bodiesand pagodas — as tacky. Some Kahala residents believed Kawamoto was purposefully trying to degrade neighborhood property values.

"Genshiro Kawamoto desecrated property," Fox said. "I’ve seen (Kahala Avenue) go from being the best in the world to ThirdWorld country status."

Last year however, Kawamoto was persuaded by local real estate development firm Alexander & Baldwin Inc. to sell his Kahalacollection after authorities in Japan arrested the enigmatic tycoon on tax evasion charges.

A&B paid roughly $100 million, and began efforts to resell the properties.

Fox bought two connected lots for a combined $4.6 million last October, according to property records.

The lots are separated from Fox’s own residence by a private lane, and were once part of the estate of late Hawaii hotel developerChristopher Hemmeter, who Fox said was a dear friend and alerted Fox to the opportunity to buy his Kahala home 39 years ago.

Fox bought the former Kawamoto lots with an idea to relocate the private lane and join the lots with his residence and providemore land for his five children and 14 grandchildren.

"This is long term for my family," he said of the Kahala property. In the short term, Fox wanted to beautify the land thatKawamoto had decorated with boulders and pagoda statues amid broken walls, tree stumps and dirt.

Brian Vidinhar, president of Waimanalo-based landscaping firm Ultimate Innovations Inc., led the restoration project and wasshocked at what he found on the site — pool remnants, hollow tile blocks, wood rubble, irrigation piping and more.

"It was a huge transformation," he said. "We were pulling all kinds of crap out of here."

It took 48 dump truck trips to remove the debris, while some boulders the size of small cars had to be broken up for removal,Vidinhar added.

Fox said it cost $600,000 just to clean up what Kawamoto had left behind.

Work began at the end of last year, but got hung up over permitting issues. Fox said he wanted to put in a pair of flagpoles on thecorner of the lot and has waited close to a year for approval that is still pending.

Another issue had to do with landscaping a city-owned strip fronting the property. Because there are no paved sidewalks alongmost of Kahala Avenue, the city allows homeowners to plant and maintain curbside landscaping. Fox said he was stunned thatit took three months to get a permit to plant grass and decorative vegetation.

"It was a rat-infested jungle," he said. "Now it’s a nature strip."