Kakaʻako continues to change dramatically. How did this story get started? It may seem unlikely that the origins of how Kakaʻako looks today could go back to the 19th century, but that’s the truth. Here’s the background.
Back in 1853, an American man named Curtis Perry Ward arrived in Honolulu. He was originally from Kentucky, had moved to San Francisco and then continued west to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He went into business with a transport company using horse-drawn wagons to move cargo from the docks in Honolulu. When the American Civil War began in 1861 he was a supporter of the Confederacy — the states that seceded from the Union to be able to continue the system of slavery — but he also chose to become a citizen of the nation of Hawaiʻi at this time, as well.
In 1865, he married Victoria Robinson. Her mother Rebecca was one-half Hawaiian, and Rebecca’s father James Robinson had been an English shipbuilder who’d come to Hawaiʻi in 1822. Victoria, like her eight siblings, all had spoken Hawaiian as their first language, which was standard at the time of her birth in 1846.
Curtis and Victoria Ward gradually purchased various properties in what’s now the central part of Honolulu until they had a spread of at least 80 acres. They ran this as a farm that included a productive fishpond, and they also had fishing rights offshore of what’s now Kewalo Basin. An artesian well was drilled that provided ample fresh water pumped by a windmill for the grand home that they built. This elegant two-story structure, completed in 1881, had porches on both floors and was topped on the roof by a small viewing platform protected by a delicate pergola. It was named “Old Plantation” — not, as you might imagine, as a reference to the sugar plantations which were then abundant in the Hawaiian Islands, but instead in honor of the plantations of the American south where Curtis Ward had been born. Not a positive association, sadly, since Ward continued to hold an attachment to the Southern slavery-based society of his origin.
The Ward family grew to encompass seven daughters who were born from 1867 to 1881. The next year, however, Curtis Ward died at the age of 53; his oldest daughter was only 15 years old. But the widowed Victoria Ward stepped up to continue to run her properties, showing strong ability in both finance and business. She and her daughters were supporters of Queen Liliuokalani after the latter was overthrown in 1893, and Victoria notably had a Hawaiian flag placed as a canopy over her bed, supported by the bedposts. She said she had been born under this flag and would die under it, which eventually occurred in 1935.
Business-smart Victoria Ward and some of her daughters were fond of filing lawsuits. One significant such incident began in 1927 as the City & County of Honolulu was working on what was considered a necessity for Honolulu, that being the construction of a new cross-town street to relieve traffic congestion (whatever that was considered to be at that time) on King Street. The first segment of the planned Kapiʻolani Boulevard was to extend from King and South Street to Sheridan Street, but this would take the new 100-foot wide thoroughfare through 2 ¼ acres of the Old Plantation grounds. By December 1927, only four pieces of private property were still in the way of proceeding, and two of these were Ward-owned. In March 1928, a price of $38,714 for the condemnation of the Old Plantation segment had been set and was to be paid to Mrs. Victoria Ward in October, but she appealed to the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court in November 1929. The latter court upheld the decision the following month and $41,936 (including $3,222 interest earned during the legal proceedings; a total of over $800,000 today) was finally presented to Victoria’s lawyer on December 31, 1929. All pau? Nope! She’d already filed another suit claiming damages for land along the new Kapiʻolani Boulevard landfill, which was at a lower “unfilled” level, but this was dismissed.
Of the seven Ward sisters, four were married, but only two had any children. It was these descendants who bore the last names of Wodehouse and Hustace who eventually would come to run Victoria Ward Ltd., the entity formed in 1930 that managed the Ward Estate land in Kakaʻako until the property was sold to General Growth in 2002.
Victoria left the house and the land immediately around it to her three unmarried daughters who continued to live there. By the 1950s, surrounded by a high green wooden fence, the property was overgrown and shut off from the enlarging city around it. Lucy died in 1954; sisters Kathleen and Kulamanu succumbed in 1958 and 1959 after years as hospital-bound invalids. This left only the last surviving sister Lani Booth, divorced since the 1940s, living in a separate house on the same property.
Meanwhile, the City & County of Honolulu had been eyeing this large piece of land in this desirable location. It filed a legal notice of condemnation in October 1956 and a year later paid $2,095,000 for Old Plantation. This finalized the change of ownership but city officials were initially refused entry to the grounds on Oct. 30, 1957, by a caretaker who insisted at least one month must be allowed for the contents of the house to be moved out. Although plans for redevelopment were not yet completely set, the construction of a municipal auditorium was the most likely since the lack of such a facility was a notable problem at the time.
The residents of Honolulu were extremely curious about what this secretive spot looked like. To accommodate the thousands who wanted to enter, the Honolulu Academy of Arts (today’s Honolulu Museum of Art), located mauka of Old Plantation on the other side of Thomas Square, sponsored two public open houses in September and October of 1958. The charge was 90 cents for adults — the admission table quickly ran out of dimes to give in change for the many who paid $1, requiring a fast run to some banks in downtown Honolulu to get bags of 10-cent coins — and 25 cents for children under 12. The unkempt condition of the grounds meant that visitors had to sign legal waivers which acknowledged potential danger.
Inside the house, now emptied of Ward family possessions, jewelry store owner George Moody had arranged over 160 items of 19th century furniture and home decor from the Academy of Arts collection in several of the first floor rooms to give a feeling of its original appearance. Ladies of the Ka'ahumanu Society were present to oversee, along with Kamehameha School boys in their military uniforms. The Royal Hawaiian Band performed and the members of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel Girls Glee Club — now middle-aged and older women — sang nostalgic songs from the second-floor porch. Most important of these was the still-popular “Old Plantation,” a tune whose Hawaiian lyrics praise the beauty of this family home. People lined up to go inside, then strolled around the large pond makai of the house.
The public response was significant. Over 11,000 people visited on Sept. 20-21, followed by 5,500 on Oct. 25-26. Many of these were touched by this remnant of the 19th century that was still present in growing Honolulu and wished that it could be preserved as a public park. But it was already too late for that; a paved parking lot had already been installed on Ward Avenue across from Kapiʻolani Bowl (a bowling alley),and plans were in place for the City & County to earn income from leasing the 800-foot frontage on Kapiʻolani Boulevard for used car lots along with a potential amusement park (a “miniature Disneyland”) to occupy most of the rest of the 23.6 acres. Public opinion was strongly against all of this, and none ended up happening. The historic home was, however, demolished on Sept. 23, 1959.
Still to come would be the widening of Ward Avenue that would slice off part of this land, along with the construction of what would initially be the Honolulu International Center.
That’ll be an upcoming article to watch for.
For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.
