Library restoration to result in new Kohala Heritage Center
By Linsey Dower, June 19, 2023 – Honolulu Star-Advertiser (Reprinted with permission.)
A small group of volunteers in Kohala is working to raise funds to restore the town’s nearly century-old Bond Memorial Library.
The group is called the Bond Library Restoration Project, and they have been restoring the building across from the King Kamehameha statue in Kapaau to transform it into what will eventually become the Kohala Heritage Center.
“It’s really a very historical little corner,” said Christine Richardson, one of the leading volunteers of the Bond Library Restoration Project. “It served as a library from 1928 until 2010, and it has rich and deep community memory.”
Sharon Hayden and Richardson, who are spearheading the project, initiated the restoration about a year after the library closed. They understood the historical significance of the building and sought to turn it into a heritage center rather than see it deteriorate.
“We want to tell the history of Kohala,” Hayden said. “There’s also never been a repository for any of the items that the older folks have.”
Two nonprofits, the North Kohala Community Resource Center and Friends of the Future, have served as the project’s fiscal sponsors, helping to process the grants and donations the project has received, Richardson said.
The restored structure will house resources for the community to learn more about Kohala as a historic town and the birthplace of Kamehameha the Great.
Funding aside, Richardson said that one of the biggest challenges throughout the process so far was transferring the title of the property from the state to the Bond family, who were the original property owners before the library’s construction . The transfer took about 11 years and $45,000 in legal fees, which was paid for by one of the project’s donors, Richardson said.
Once the title was back under the Bond family name, the family agreed to lease the property to the Bond Library Restoration Project.
Since then, the project has raised $700,000 of its nearly $1 million goal. Parts of the building will be preserved such as the floors, which were made specifically to hold the weight of shelves filled with books. The windows will also be preserved, aside for the reglazing they will require.
New features will include a climate-controlled room that will store old documents, photos and other climate-sensitive items, Richardson said. There also are plans to incorporate a media center that will feature oral histories that they hope to gather from the people in the Kohala community, Hayden said.
During the restoration process, the Historic Hawaii Foundation named the Bond Library one of Hawaii’s top 10 most endangered buildings. The foundation’s executive director, Kiersten Faulkner, said the recognition was determined based on community nominations.
“People were telling us how important it was to their childhoods, to their community gatherings and to their experience of everyday life,” Faulkner said. “It was the place they would go to after school while they were waiting for their parents to get off work, or the place where they were introduced to stories.”
Faulkner expressed her admiration for the grassroots efforts that are moving the project forward and gathering support from across the state. She hopes that the preservation of the site will spark a ripple effect for communities to continue channeling their pride and effort into preserving other similarly historic places.
While the project still requires about $300,000, Richardson is optimistic that they will be able to raise those funds in time to complete the restoration by late fall. Those who would like to learn more about the project or ways to donate can email bondlibraryrestoration@gmail.com or call Richardson at 808-895-6108.
Linsey Dower covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a national service organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.
Photography: Courtesy of David Croxford
Article Written By: Loren Moreno, HONOLULU Magazine
What is it?
Located across the street from the first statue of King Kamehameha the Great in Kapa‘au on the Big Island, Bond Memorial Public Library served the people of this historic community for more than 80 years.
This tiny, cottagelike building sits on land donated in 1927 to the then-Territory of Hawai‘i by Caroline Bond for the purposes of building a library. Twelve years later, the state renamed the library after local philanthropist Benjamin Bond, and it remained in use until 2010. Over the years, the 1,610-square-foot New England-style building, resembling a small house and harkening back to Kapa‘au’s sugar-plantation era, has become a familiar landmark. “It’s quite a gem,” says Rhoady Lee, a Big Island architect working to preserve the building. “It’s an elegant little structure, a great relic of the past.”
What threatens it?
When the state Public Library System christened a new, modern library in North Kohala in 2010, the Bond Memorial Public Library building fell out of use, says Keith Fujio, administrative services officer with the state Public Library System.
Library officials attempted to return the land back to the heirs of the Bond Estate, the New Moon Foundation, but, “They didn’t want the property back,” Fujio says. Now, the library system is in the process of turning the land over to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, which will then decide what to do with the property.
“The building is old, but it has been well-maintained over the years,” Fujio says. “That being said, the land is significantly more valuable than the building itself.”
What can be done?
Ultimately, it will be up to the state to decide what will happen with the property and the building that resides on it. Lee is working with a grassroots community group, Ka‘apa‘apa‘a ‘O Kohala, to form a nonprofit so the organization can lease the property and turn the building into a museum chronicling North Kohala’s plantation past. Lee also hopes another nonprofit agency interested in preserving the structure might step forward to help lease the property in the interim.
