Oahu’s historic homes offer a slice of history and a sense of place

By KRISTINA LINNEA GARCIA
Associated Press

Hawaii is hard on building preservationists. Development and other pressures have reduced the number of historic homes, but there’s an effort to preserve and share those remaining. Take the Liljestrand House, which was designed by architect Vladimir Ossipoff in 1948 on a mountain overlooking Honolulu. It’s one of Hawaii’s few historic homes open to visitors. Ossipoff worked in a style now known as Pacific Modern, which includes Japanese carpentry, the strategic use of trade winds for cooling, and the merging of outside and inside space. Builders often looked to the past for inspiration. That includes using Native Hawaiian features like pili grass thatching and rock walls made from local volcanic stone.