Honolulu Museum of Art puts historic Spalding House in Makiki up for sale

The Honolulu Museum of Art announced Tuesday that its board of trustees has decided to put the historic Spalding House in Makiki Heights up for sale.

The move will allow the museum to focus its resources on expanded programming at its main campus on South Beretania Street. Several farewell events are planned for the fall, with the Spalding House’s final closure slated for the end of the year, the museum said.

“This is a very difficult decision that comes with a lot of mixed emotion,” said trustee and interim museum Director Mark Burak in a news release. “From a fiduciary standpoint, we’ve taken a very long and hard look at this from all angles. While the Spalding House property’s beauty and historic significance make it hard to part with, it has also been challenging splitting our attention between two large, resource-intensive art campuses, one limited by several factors that have made it difficult to deliver the kind of quality art exhibitions, programs and services we have desired.”

The Spalding House, a hidden gem tucked away at 2411 Makiki Heights Drive, sits on about 3.5 acres, featuring a Japanese stroll garden, pool and panoramic views of Diamond Head, the ocean and the city.

It has hosted numerous, unique art exhibits over the decades and been a launchpad for many contemporary artists who have fond memories of the creative energy fostered there. It has passed from owner to owner, evolving from private residence to independent museum to part of HoMA.

Honolulu Academy of Arts founder Anna Rice Cooke built Spalding House in 1925 as a residential property, naming it Nu‘umealani, or Heavenly Terrace. Cooke’s daughter Alice Spalding acquired the residential property in 1934.

The museum, also referred to as the Cooke- Spalding Residence, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Architecturally, it is a good example of the blending of Western and Asian elements that took place in Hawaii during the 1920s and 1930s, according to the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation.

The Honolulu Academy of Arts, now known as the Honolulu Museum of Art, acquired the property at the bequest of Spalding in 1968.

The property was then sold to Honolulu Advertiser publisher and philanthropist Thurston Twigg-Smith, who lived there several years with his family before gifting the property as the Contemporary Museum in 1988.

The Contemporary Museum operated as an independent museum until it returned to the fold of the Honolulu Academy of Arts as a gift in May 2011.

Spalding House offers art in five main galleries, the Cades Pavilion and an outdoor Surface Gallery, along with a cafe and shop. The sprawling garden is full of sculptures including the works of artists Satoru Abe, Toshiko Takaezu, Deborah Butterfield and George Rickey.

HoMA said that over the years it has managed the picturesque but aging property with the same staff as its Beretania Street museum and nearby art school.

HoMA’s board of trustees had an ad hoc committee conduct a detailed evaluation of the overall economics and potential for Spalding House, and decided it would be best to sell it. The property comes with a conditional use permit that limits the attendance and number of events that can be held there.

Maintaining two separate properties with finite resources was a logistical challenge.

The property, currently listed as part commercial and residential, likely will revert back to residential, according to HoMA spokesman Kevin Imanaka. The trustees have not yet enlisted a real estate agent.

Property tax records assess the total residential property at about $13.5 million and the commercial property at about $435,600.

Artists and museum supporters responded with a mix of emotions to news of this latest evolution for Spalding House.

Nancie Caraway said in an email that the museum has been a sanctuary, and part of her and husband, former Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s, lives since their graduate school days at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

“I would bring my ‘Plato’s Republic’ and a picnic and we would dream, hope and be filled with gratitude for the beauty and architecture and especially the Hawaiian garden surrounding us,” she said in an email.

Artist Jodi Endicott said it signals the end of an era for the contemporary museum.

Twelve current Spalding House employees will be transferred to the main museum at 900 S. Beretania St. and nearby art school. The artwork owned by HoMA at Spalding will be added to the rotation of displays at the main museum and school.