“A long
time ago, I rented a Frank Lloyd Wright house,” says Carolyn Blackburn,
who, along with her husband, Mark, owns Mauna Kea Galleries in Waimea.
“After that, I never wanted to live in a normal house again, ever.”
“It was an experience,” she explains. “You were inside, but you were outside.”
The
same can be said of the Blackburns’ Waimea home, designed by Honolulu
architect Patrick Tozier in partnership with the couple, who acted as
contractors.
The
cedar front of the house is mostly windows. The roofline slopes down at
an angle, and a high row of windows diminish in size. It’s all to
better position the long, sleek-looking home for its view.
“The
view is of Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa and Hualalai,” says Blackburn, “and we
sit up high on a hill, so you just see trees and especially Mauna Kea.
You’re constantly aware of the change of the weather and the light.
You’re with nature all day.”
“From
a distance, you don’t even see our house,” she says. “It sits low and
is kind of camouflaged. It’s very natural and very Zen.
At night it completely disappears, and all you see is a lanternlike, gold color, glowing.”
The
Blackburns, who own one of the largest private collections of
Polynesian art in the world, have filled the home with sculpture and
carvings from the South Pacific. A short, museumlike corridor is lined
with paintings by master artists of Hawaii and Polynesia, and with
carved bowls. Even the bathroom has a Polynesian wood carving hanging
on the wall.
Carolyn,
an interior designer, decorated the home. She describes modern
architecture and modern living as being about using and enjoying every
part of a house.
“Most
people have a dining room they never eat in,” she says, “and a living
room they never sit in. Why save it for Thanksgiving or Christmas?”
The
Blackburns planned much of their 3,700-square-foot, three-bedroom,
two-and-a-half bath home as open space, definitely meant to be used.
A porte-cochère leads into the center of the great room, which, like the rest of the interior, is done in African wenge.
The flooring, which runs at an interesting diagonal, is a wood fron Vanuatu called black bean, which was milled in New Zealand.
The
kitchen is another expanse of angles, a trapezoidal space that is a
culmination of the home’s long, angled design. Its 10-by-14-by-4-foot
island mimics the room’s trapezoidal shape and is made up of two large
pieces of custom-honed black granite. The kitchen counter uses the same
granite.
A
striking feature of the home is its library, the home’s only two-story
area. Bookshelves rise 12 feet into the space, and a staircase with
wenge stair treads leads up to an art-filled sitting area.
“People
are constantly driving by, slowing down and looking at this home,” says
Tozier, the architect. “It’s unusual. It plays on forms and it’s
sculptural in that sense. We don’t see that in Hawaii, which is
unfortunate.”
“What
happened to Hawaii?” he asks. “People were coming from the Mainland to
check out Hawaiian architecture in the 1950s and ’60s. Hawaii was hot
as far as architecture was concerned.”
“Now
we’re bringing in Mediterranean motifs and Italian motifs, and I just
don’t get it,” he says. “We have lost our progressive attitude in
Hawaii.”
Perhaps
that “progressive attitude” regarding architecture will return with the
next generation. The Blackburns’ 14-year-old son Kuhane is a budding
architect attending a summer school program this year at Taliesin, the
Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.
“He’s
really good,” says his mother. “He’s the one who picked out the Higgins
piece,” she adds, referring to the great room’s colorful glass divider,
chosen to gently divide the space without blocking the view. “He saw it
in the dealer’s booth in New York City and said, We have to get this.”
As
satisfied as they are with their Waimea house, it has just been sold
and now the Blackburns are on to their next project—remodeling a 1920s
Hawaiian-style home they will move into in Oahu’s Black Point
neighborhood.
The
move, which is for their son’s schooling, is the right thing to do,
says Blackburn. Still, she says, they will miss the Waimea home.
