Aluminum cans, cardboard and bottles are all things consumers frequently recycle.

Houses, not so much.

But recently a North Shore residence was recycled for the second time in its extraordinary life of nearly 80 years.

The light blue four-bedroom, one- bathroom abode was humble yet had noteworthy ties to World War II, the TV series “North Shore,” an upcoming movie called “Press Play” and Honolulu’s longest-serving mayor.

Wahiawa Middle School teacher Paul Stader was 5 years old when his father bought the beachfront property, so some details of the home’s provenance have faded with time and memories.

Still, it’s clear that the residence was one of many military housing units recycled by Frank Fasi in the 1940s before he entered politics and won six elections for mayor.

“That was my dad’s house,” confirmed local attorney David Fasi.

Before the late Fasi ran for elected office, he made a name for himself in Hawaii’s building materials recycling industry after the Connecticut native served as a Marine Corps supply officer during World War II.

Fasi established the Frank F. Fasi Supply Co. in Honolulu around 1946, and the business focused on buying wartime buildings and reselling them whole or for parts.

Items from surplus buildings at Oahu military installations sold by Fasi included lumber, metal barrels, telephone poles, mess tables, galvanized kitchen sinks, oil stoves and latrines, according to newspaper advertisements at the time.

Fasi also dealt in complete buildings that included barracks, a movie theater, mess halls, offices and something that became a specialty for the entrepreneur: military homes and Quonset huts that he promoted as affordable housing and would transport anywhere on the island for buyers.

“Be Wise — Quonsetize,” read one Fasi Supply ad from 1947.

Another ad, headlined “Faz Declares War on High Prices,” offered 1,120- square-foot Quonset homes Fasi valued at $1,600 and priced for $350 delivered.

“Solve your housing or beach house problems now,” the ad said. “This is by far the best mass housing value ever offered in Hawaii.”

Fasi also advertised “deluxe” officer homes, including 2,880-square-foot units for $1,650.

In all, Fasi sold hundreds of Quonset buildings and traditional-style military housing units over just a few years. One effort included 375 Navy Quonsets for $300 to $1,000. Another was for 300 Navy family and bachelors quarters in Pearl City.

As part of the business, Fasi would truck a building to a site for buyers, sometimes cutting homes in half and rejoining the pieces after delivery.

This aspect of the business led him into politics after he felt harassed by a city engineer who began requiring a dual police escort for such moves that added to Fasi’s cost.

A defiant Fasi, who argued that he employed his own escorts making transportation safe, refused to pay police officers and racked up about 150 tickets that he challenged in court.

Fasi eventually prevailed after early legal setbacks. But even after winning, he remained perturbed enough at what he viewed as an arbitrary city decision that he decided to get involved in making policy.

“That’s what led him to politics,” David Fasi said. “He was getting ticketed. He said, ‘This is not right.’”

The move soon made Fasi a household name in government that over history overshadowed his brief but successful time as a businessman.

“Fearless Frank” was elected to the Territorial Senate in 1958, followed by the City Council in 1964. He won mayoral elections in 1968, 1972, 1976, 1984, 1988 and 1992. The often combative mayor known for fighting for the “little guy” also lost bids for mayor in 1952, 1980, 1996, 2000 and 2004. Fasi also ran unsuccessfully for governor four times. He died in 2010.

David Fasi said even with his father’s fame in government, which led to municipal buildings named after his dad, acquaintances still occasionally point out Quonset huts and other recycled buildings around Oahu that are a reminder of the former mayor’s business legacy.

Part of this Fasi legacy is what Stader, the Wahiawa teacher, inherited from his own father, who died in 1991.

The North Shore home was rented for decades to local residents by Stader’s father, a movie stunt coordinator from California who bought the property on Ke Nui Road in 1966. The beachfront house close to world-renowned surf break Pipeline also served as a set for the TV series “North Shore” and was recently used in shooting an upcoming film called “Press Play,” starring Danny Glover, according to Stader.

“It’s got the old plantation look to it,” Stader said. “Film companies like to use it.”

Stader more recently decided to make the property his residence, but the home, built in 1942 and believed to be from Schofield Barracks, wasn’t fit for renovation because of extensive termite damage. So Stader decided to at least partially recycle it by hiring Re-Use Hawaii to deconstruct the house and salvage parts.

“A lot of people were mad at me for tearing it down,” Stader said. “But it would have ended up on the sand if the termites stopped holding hands.”

Stader is building a new home on the site, and its L-shaped layout mirrors the home it replaces.

Ryan Reynolds, deconstruction manager for Re-Use Hawaii, said he could see where the house had been previously cut in half for moving.

“You could definitely tell where they spliced it together,” he said.

The company, which today does some of what Fasi did more than 70 years ago, spent eight days earlier this year taking apart the old home mainly to salvage redwood lumber.

Quinn Vittum, Re-Use Hawaii executive director, said he had heard about Fasi’s salvage work from military officials while doing some Navy housing deconstruction projects in recent years.

“They said, ‘You could do it like Frank Fasi used to do it,’” Vittum said. “I said, ‘Huh?’”

Now Vittum knows more. “It’s neat,” he said. “It’s a fascinating story.”