Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 15, Number 9, 1 Kepakemapa 1998 — Lunalilo's Landmark [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Lunalilo's Landmark

by Paulo Durbin Of the ali'i trusts, King Lunalilo's is the oldest - and the most strapped for cash. Relatively speaking, though, it's better off now than it has been in years. And its three trustees, Keahi Allen, James Ahloy and Gene Tiwanak, have made a bold commitment to Lunalilo's legacy by closing the landmark Hawai'i Kai Lunalilo Home for renovations. "The building was falling apart," explained Allen, a trustee since 1990 and the daughter of former trustee Nāpua Stevens Poire. "We hope that with this renovation, we will have a plaee Hawaiians will look to with pride." The Lunalilo Home opened in 1883,10 years after Lunalilo was elected King of Hawai'i. "Intelligent, shrewd, sensible," Mark Twain described Lunalilo, "a man of first-rate abilities." Nonetheless, he was under a court-ordered guardianship, the motivation for whieh is only now being questioned. Before Lunalilo ascended the throne, his personal property, mainly from his mother, was estimated at more than 400,000 acres, including 33 ahupua'a and nine smaller parcels. His guardians, who had him on a $12 monthly allowanee, sold some of his land during his lifetime. Even so, when he died, at 39, he left his father, Charles Kana'ina, the use of vast holdings. Upon Kana'ina's death, Lunalilo's real estate was to fund "a fire-proof building for the use and accommodation of poor, destitute and infirm people of Hawaiian

blood extraction, giving preference to old people." Given Lunalilo had been "under guardianship," his will, drafted by his attorney and friend Alfred Judd, was contested. With Judd a justice on the Supreme Court of Hawai'i, the will was upheld, along with its codicils - drafted and siuned bv Judd.

The first home for the elderly stood on land in Makiki, a grant from King Kalākaua. By then, the trustees,

among them Sanford Dole, had petitioned the court for, and received, instructions to sell the trust' s land, a sore subject among Hawaiians. "Between 1877 and the early 1 880s, they got rid of all of it," said Gregg Meyer, administrator of the Lunalilo Home. "We are hardpressed to think that what they did was prudent," said Allen. "We think a lot of people must have gained monetarily. There had to be collusion." According to Meyer, Sanford Dole sold the entire ahupua'a of ^

Kapahulu, extending from Lē'ahi

(Diamond Head) to Mau- i

nalani, whieh was registered at thp

Bureau of Con-

veyances in the name of one of his friends, then in Dole's. A codicil left Lunalilo's Manne Residence to Queen Emma who had to sue to get it. "Dole told her she could have the house and yard," said Meyer. "She wanted the whole thing, so she took them to court and won. Todav. the

Maiine Residence is the International Market Ik. Plaee, the Queen

Emma FoundaI tion's biggest 1 Hnaneial I asset."

Eventually, the Lunalilo I trust developed a tiny land base of residential leaseholds. But this smallest of

ali'i trust landlords had to sell all but one lot when the

mandatory conversion statute was tested in court. The trust wOl likely be the guinea pig for the new trustee selection method, now that the Supreme Court will no longer be involved. While any future legal limitations on trustee compensation will also apply, because of the trust's small ineome, said Allen, "They won't affect us." For years, the Lunalilo Home has operated at an annual deficit of $500,000, mainly because many of the elderly residents could not pay the full monthly fee of $2,200 for their room, board and care. The trust corpus has always carried the difference. Amazingly, the Lunalilo portfolio is currently valued at $9 million, a 450 percent increase since 1987 only partly due to the stock market's rise. Crediting the trustees' hard work on diversifying investments, grant applications (including, successfully, to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs) and fund raising, Meyer said, "They have turned the trust around." ■ (To be continued in the November issue ofKa Wai Ola o OHA)

King Lunalilo (William Charles Lunalilo) was the sixth ruler of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the first elected sovereign of Hawai'i. Though not a descendant of Kamehameha I, Lunalilo was the grandson of Kala'imamahū, Kamehameha's half-brother. His brief rule of 13 months extended from January 1873 -February 1874.

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