It all started with a letter written by Rebecca Lapham of Chicago. Lapham was a frequent visitor to Hawaii who observed the meager state of nurse training in the islands when she visited here in the 1930s. So she sat down in 1931 and sent a letter to megaphilanthropist Edward Harkness in New York, noting that because Hawaii was way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it was very hard to recruit and train nurses. The Queen’s Hospital wanted to have a homegrown cadre of nurses from the islands, but the hospital needed a residence for these new local recruits.

In more ways than one it must have been a persuasive letter, because back came a check for $125,000 to be matched by the community. (That amount, by the way, would be almost $2 million in today’s money.) And thus was born the handsome, historic Harkness Building on the downtown campus of Queen’s, now the Queen’s Medical Center.

Yes, Harkness was a very rich man. In 1918 he was listed as the sixth-richest person in the United States by Forbes magazine. And he gave away wads of money — his philanthropy was right up there with the Rockefellers, Andrew Carnegie and George Eastman — but since his enormous giving was confined almost totally to the East Coast it must have been a real stretch of his geographic generosity to send money way out into the Pacific, to Honolulu.

His three principal causes were fine arts, health care and top educational institutions. Consider his multimillions given to colleges such as Harvard, Yale (his alma mater), Columbia (where he got his law degree), Cornell, Connecticut College and Brown University. He was a huge benefactor to many East Coast cultural institutions as well, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural History, the New York Public Library and the New York Zoological Society.

All that massive wealth came from a $100,000 investment his father, Steven, made in Standard Oil in 1867. Edward’s father was a successful merchant in Cleveland, yet he was astute enough to see the potential of Rockefeller’s oil company and so after several recapitalizations, Steven Harkness ended up with a 10 percent stake in Standard Oil.

Giving to colleges was one thing, but many think that Edward Harkness’ most significant accomplishments came with several prestigious Northeastern secondary schools. His high school alma mater was St. Paul’s, but he also gave generously to other private schools such as Lawrenceville, Taft, Hill School and especially Phillips Exeter. He challenged Phillips Exeter to come up with a different way to teach besides the teacher standing in front of rows of desks in the classroom. After much discussion, a final school proposal resulted in a $5.8 million gift that capped the class size at 12 where students — with the teacher — would sit around an oblong table in a discussion format. These became known as Harkness tables.

When all the money was in place in 1931 to build the Harkness nurses’ residence at the Queen’s Hospital, the committee turned to one of Hawaii’s most famous architects to design the building. Charles W. Dickey had deep roots in the islands. To begin with, he was an Alexander. Over and over Dickey designed classic buildings in Hawaii, including the Alexander & Baldwin Building downtown. Also in his portfolio are the Bishop Estate Building and the Stangenwald Building, both on Merchant Street, the historic U.S. Immigration Station on Ala Moana Boulevard and the handsome Makawao Union Church on Maui. There are many more.

What is wonderful is that the Queen’s campus has a very good archive of its historic buildings. Kalani Kaanaana capably keeps it through the Native Hawaiian Health Program. From the Harkness construction phase, he showed me letters from Hawaiian Electric Co. offering to provide not just power but also appliances for the hospital. Other letters were from Dickey to the contractor, which was E.E. Black.

To say the Harkness Building on the Queen’s campus is historic and handsome is not enough. Many would consider it the ultimate in territorial architecture with its red-tiled Dickey roof, periodic open corridors, outside railings, arches, open screens and its U-shape around a green courtyard. For preservationists, Harkness is also the ultimate: Its exterior remains totally intact, even down to the original wrought-iron lampposts in front. Inside is the original antique elevator claimed to be the second-oldest people-carrying lift in the islands.

In a grateful nod to the woman who got the whole thing started, above the entry to the Harkness Cafe are the words, "The Rebecca Lapham Hall."

Keep Hawaii Hawaii is a monthly column on island architecture and urban planning. Robert M. Fox, president of Fox Hawaii Inc., studied architecture in California and Japan. He was one of the founders of the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation in 1974. David Cheever, owner of David Cheever Marketing, has served on the boards of the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation and the Hawaii Architectural Foundation. Send comments to keephawaiihawaii@staradvertiser.com.