A startling discovery on Kaua`i

The Montgomery House restoration might hold answers for me

Thanks so much for hitting the ❤️ and letting me know you’re on the journey with me!

Months after these events, I was still mulling over what I’d experienced with the garage flood and the encounter with the kolea, when a friend forwarded me a Facebook post written by an archaeologist with the Hawaii state park system. 

This archaeologist, Alan Carpenter,  worked on the development of Haena State Park some years ago. After a chance meeting with Aunty Henrietta “Etta” Phillips, a Hawaiian kupuna who was born in Montgomery House (the same cottage our family dubbed the “Forest House”), Alan was moved by her reminiscence of life in the broken-down cabin. His perspective was that it, and the Allerton guest cottage at Ke’e Beach, were historical dwellings: the only remaining structures in Haena that had survived the 1946 tsunami.  

Alan spearheaded an effort to restore both ruined cottages to their former glory. He went to great lengths to to get grants, and once funding was secured, find experts to rebuild the two buildings exactly as they once were. You can read the entire story of the project on the Historic Hawaii Foundation website HERE.

The story of the houses’ restoration was compelling and amazing, especially in light of the way in which Mom and I had visited and said goodbye to that very place ten years previously. 

Here is an excerpt from that essay in case you haven’t read it:

“The lullaby of the stream alongside us casts a spell that ignites memory. I look up to catch the way the light filters through giant tropical vines dangling from Java plum, guava, rose apple, and breadfruit trees. Bamboo grass and ferns carpet the forest floor. A shama thrush trills a liquid song from somewhere nearby, and I’m transported back to when I lived here, in the shadow of drip-castle mountains wrapped in empty beaches and aqua surf.

Mom and I both gasp in shock as we reach the little cottage that we called the Forest House.

The building’s listing to one side, and the roof is caved in. A limb must have fallen from the giant monkeypod tree that looms over the house, a tree that didn’t exist when we were last here. The moldy blue paint is peeling, and the front door hangs open like a missing tooth.

Three lokelani rose bushes, marking the abandoned graves of Hawaiians, still survive in the front yard—the only thing that’s the same.

We go to the back door since the front porch is crushed. The back steps, too, have disintegrated into the leaf mold of the yard, but I grasp the jamb and pull myself up into my childhood home. I turn and give Mom a hand. “Thank God we came now. This won’t be here at all much longer,” she exclaims.

The sea’s primitive termite treatment so long ago gave the wooden walls inside the cottage a silver hue that hasn’t changed. But in the kitchen, once painted yellow, mold has grown over in lichen-like patterns. Memories flood me as I stand in front of the rotten counter and broken shelves where Mom kept gallon jars of mung beans, brown rice, and whole wheat flour safe from rats and roaches.

We are rendered silent by the ravages time has wrought here.

Veils of rotting screen drift over the handmade wooden bed frame I remember lying on to read in the window, my little sister sleeping beneath me. The room looks harshly abandoned, a giant hole in the roof admitting leaves and branches that fill the corners.

I take some pictures with my phone. Feelings are jumbled and clogged within me, and I see them jostling in Mom’s eyes too.

Mom and I share hazel eyes, the greens and browns of the stream that sings beside the cabin, but this is one of the first times we’re totally in tune with each other and no words are necessary.

There was a day when I wanted to get as far from these walls as I possibly could—and I did.

I transformed myself from barefoot hippie kid in Hawaii to middle-class mental health therapist living in the Midwest, married with two kids, two careers, and two cars. Since then, I’ve come full circle: now, at my home on Maui, I recycle, organic garden, practice yoga, bodyboard, and spend all the time I can outdoors.

“This place was all I ever wanted, but I couldn’t stay here,” Mom’s voice is thick with grief. “The mana was too strong.”

“I know, Mom. I loved it here too.” I support Mom back down out of the cottage and we walk around to what used to be the front yard. I can’t help glancing under the porch as if my beloved puppy, Argos, will miraculously reappear—but it’s filthy and dark, with a smell of mildew that makes my nostrils tighten.

I look over in the direction of Taylor Camp, the hippie encampment next to our house—and gasp again.

The forest has been bulldozed into vast mounds of rotting logs. Sunlight blasts an open wound where jungle once sheltered many handmade homes made of plastic and bamboo. This particular stretch of Haena was purchased by the state of Hawaii for park development long ago, and plans are obviously progressing to make the area a fully usable property.

Mom picks up a windfall orange from the familiar tree we used to feast from, now struggling to live in the shade of the invading monkeypod. She peels the orange and hands a section to me.

As I bite into the sweet-tart, juicy fruit, I see this yard again as it was: the clothesline, with our towels drying crunchy-hot. The plywood privy nestled in a clump of banana trees. Jungle surrounding the open glade, the trees’ susurrations enhancing the sound of the stream. Makana Mountain behind the cottage, a jutting, green-clothed spire. Antique roses sheltering humble graves near a lush vegetable garden. Hand-sickled grass where we’d lie naked in the sun to dry after baths in the stream.

I’m glad that this will be a park and not just another opulent vacation rental for out-of-towners. Everyone will be able to enjoy this place, not just the privileged few.” ~FRECKLED: a Memoir of Growing up Wild in Hawaii

After that ending to my memoir, I wanted to physically go and experience the restoration of the cottage for myself. This special dwelling in the shadow of Makana Mountain held a piece of the puzzle about “home” that I was trying to figure out.