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Readers often ask how I get the idea for a column. Sometimes it begins with a question, and sometimes I run into one interesting thing while searching for another. Both those things happened this week.
I try to limit the tangents I go off on to one, but decided to violate my rule this week and explore three. Let me know if you think it paid off.
Reader Ed Allan got it started by asking about Makalei Beach Park at 3111 Diamond Head Road.
“The sign says it was the former home of the Alexander family. How did the city acquire the land? When did it become a park?”
Flappers’ Acre
While searching the Honolulu Star-Bulletin archives for information on the Alexander Estate, I found an article on the same page that aroused my curiosity. It described part of Waikiki as “Flappers’ Acre.”
I had never heard that before and find this kind of thing interesting, so I diverted from the search for Alexanders and onto this tangent.
It seems Hawaii poet Don Blanding coined the term “Flappers’ Acre” in “Touch o’ the Moon,” which appeared in McClure’s magazine. “Flappers Acre” was one of five stories about that “moon-magical region of Waikiki,” The Honolulu Advertiser wrote in 1927.
Blanding roughly defined the Flappers’ Acre area as surrounding the Royal Hawaiian and Moana hotels.
Wikipedia says, “Flappers were a subculture of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior.”
The term “flapper” faded out after World War II. The last time “Flappers’ Acre” appeared in a Honolulu newspaper was 1989, in a Glen Grant story.
Jury gambles with gamblers
I should have returned to my original subject, but while I was looking into Flappers’ Acre, I came across an interesting tidbit about a jury trial of 12 men charged with gambling in 1918.
The jury could not reach a unanimous verdict. “After some time, the suggestion was then made that balloting be abandoned and that the jurymen draw lots to determine whether a verdict of ‘guilty’ or one of ‘not guilty’ should be returned.
“One of the jurors explained that as long as the defendants were charged with indulging in a game of chance, it was suggested that the jury might play a similar game to determine whether to convict or acquit.”
Circuit Judge William H. Heen reprimanded the jurors, calling their action “illegal, inexcusable and highly reprehensible.” He declared the defendants not guilty.
William H. Heen was the uncle of “Broken Trust” co-author Judge Walter Heen.
Albert ‘Sonny’ Cunha
One of the jurors on the above-mentioned case was Albert “Sonny” Cunha. For those of you keeping score, this is tangent No. 3.
There’s a part of the Pioneer Plaza Building in downtown Honolulu called Cunha’s Alley. I don’t recall what I read about Cunha, and decided to look into it.
It was named for Sonny’s father, Emanuel Cunha, who managed the Union Saloon in 1874 on the site. King Kalakaua once brought a visiting Russian delegation for lunch and found the food superior to Iolani Palace.
“Sonny” Cunha (1879-1933) was an important figure, notwithstanding the jury shenanigans. Cunha played varsity baseball and football at Yale and co-wrote their fight song, “Boola Boola,” Star-Bulletin sports writer Bill Kwon said in 1987.
A talented pianist and singer, Cunha would entertain his Yale Glee Club friends with Hawaiian songs. One favorite was “Moanalua Hula,” and his classmates suggested he adopt it as a Yale song.
“Sonny and a New York composer revised the style and tempo and that’s how ‘Moanalua Hula’ ended up as the famous ‘Boola Boola,’” Kwon said.
Yale, however, disputes that. Fred Shapiro, writing in the Yale Alumni Magazine in 2009, said: “We can dismiss as unsubstantiated the belief, widely held in Hawaii, that ‘Boola Boola’ was composed by Sonny Cunha while he attended Yale Law School during 1898-1900.
“I have corresponded with Hawaiian music scholars and archives, however, and found no solid corroboration of the claims for Cunha,” Shapiro concludes.
However, when Cunha died in 1933, The New York Times, Washington Post and a dozen other cities’ newspapers memorialized him as co-composer of the song.
Cunha was called the “father of hapa-haole songs” in the book “The Golden Years of Hawaiian Entertainment,” by Tony Todaro. His most popular song is “On the Beach at Waikiki.”
He served in the Territorial House of Representatives (1923-24) and was a member of the Honolulu Board of Supervisors (now called the City Council) from 1924 to 1927.
Alexander Estate
When I go off on a tangent (or three), I want to return to the original topic, in this case, the Alexander Estate at 3101 Diamond Head Road.
Wallace and Mary Alexander purchased the 82,000- square-foot property from Bishop Estate trustee Atherton Richards in 1929. Wallace was the Maui-born son of Samuel T. Alexander, co-founder of Alexander & Baldwin. A distant cousin, C.W. Dickey, was their architect.
The home, built in 1930, was called Lanihau (cool heaven). An article from then says: “The natural setting under the palms and other tropical trees is enhanced by the architecture of the house, which is low, expansive and carries out the effect of primitive Hawaiian roof lines.
“Hawaiian stone, hewn beams and rafters, and paved courts under spreading hau trees make the new home one which is appropriate to the setting on an island beach.”
A second house, called Haumalu, (sheltered by a hau tree), was built on the same estate in 1937 for their daughter, Martha, who married Frank Gerbode, a cardiovascular surgeon and pioneer in the development of open-heart surgery.
For many years the homes were vacant and available for rent. Skip Lambert told me that actor Kirk Douglas installed his family at the Alexander Estate in 1964 while working on the World War II movie “In Harm’s Way.”
Andrea Bell said, “My husband and his partner once rented Lanihau in the early 1980s for a formal dinner party for their firm. It was a lovely moonlit night, and we had a catered candlelit dinner under a hau-covered arbor terrace overlooking the ocean. There were about 30 of us, and we had the estate overnight with access to both houses. Lovely memory!”
Maps of the area appear to show Makalei Beach Park on land from the Alexander family as well as Kenneth and Francis Ii Brown. The Browns considered building a “luxury cemetery” on the site in 1969. Chinn Ho proposed a low-rise resort there.
In 1997 businessman Rick Ralston (Crazy Shirts) wanted to turn the site into wedding chapels, or, he said, it could become 16 townhouses.
In response, the city rushed to “Save Diamond Head.” It considered turning the entire area from Coconut Avenue to the lighthouse into an extension of Kapiolani Park. Two small parks were actually built: Leahi and Makalei beach parks.
A park sign funded by businessman and neighbor Jay Shidler says: “Makalei, translates as fish trap, and is a supernatural tree branch used to attract fish. A fishing shrine once located in the vicinity of this park was known as Makalei.
“This site was previously a home of the Alexander Family named Haumalu, which translates as quiet, as in sheltered by a Hau Tree. A hau tree remains as a remnant of Haumalu.”
Adjoining Makalei Beach Park is a beautiful, but hidden, beach I had never seen before. It fronts homes that were once part of the Alexander Estate. If you’re in the area, check it out.
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Bob Sigall is the author of the five “Companies We Keep” books. Send your comments and suggestions to Sigall@Yahoo.com.
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