Our Hawaiian journey began with my retirement. My husband Kevin and I had never been on any vacation in our 30 years of marriage as we were busy raising our 3 children. For our 30th anniversary he said he wanted to take me to Diamond Head Hawaii for our Diamond Anniversary. I was elated! I planned a three week long vacation, visiting 3 different islands, booked flights and places to stay. I asked for the three weeks off work from my work as a database administrator for the Salem Oregon public school district. They wouldn’t give me 3 weeks off, they said it was unheard of! So I just retired instead!
We had an amazing anniversary trip! We absolutely loved Hawaii and particularly, the Big Island. With such a diverse island with lots of varying ecosystems, so many different things to see and do, and the culture was amazing! We planned another trip for the following January and stayed only on the Big Island for 2 weeks. It felt like home.
As soon as we arrived back in Oregon in early February 2020, we started hearing about the virus that was spreading and soon after we were engulfed in the full-blown pandemic. Sitting home (newly retired) depression and anxiety was setting in. You all know what it was like as we were all seeing it unfold. I had to cancel our month long RV trip we had planned for August. We had just purchased a brand new truck and fifth wheel for travelling, but now was sitting unused. July we rented a lake house on Airbnb to get away with family and that was a nice break from it. Around that same time I found an interesting house on Auction.com that looked big, all wood, and in Hilo Hawaii on the Big Island on 10 acres! Not many pictures posted. Kevin said I should bid on it. At that time no one was travelling to Hawaii as they were in full quarantine for all incoming travelers. No one was bidding on the place but me and the bank. I decided I was not going to bid against the bank, so I stopped bidding, they were just forcing the price up. The auction house called me soon after and said if I just bid one more time, it would be mine, so I did and we won it! So we started planning our trip back to the Big Island to see what we bought and start our new adventure. We had a friend on the Big Island to take more pictures for us and be there for bed and refrigerator delivery prior to our arrival.
The trip back was much different than our prior two trips. We were bringing our dog Huckleberry as we figured we would be staying a while. We had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get him in without doggy quarantine, but we jumped through them all. He rode under the plane in a climate controlled area. When arriving in Honolulu we found a very unorganized airport. One flight attendant told us since we had a dog, we should wait until everyone else got off the plane and there would be someone there to guide us to the agriculture office to get our dog. We waited and when we got off the plane there was no one waiting for us and no one could tell us where to go to get our dog. But we quickly discovered that all travelers had to “check in” to get signed up for the 14-day mandatory quarantine process. Since we were the last one off the plane (for no reason) we were the last one in a massive line. The process was new and kinks not worked out, so the wait was long. We only had an hour layover and we still needed to get our dog! Once we got through the quarantine process we didn’t know where to go to get the dog and time was running out. We finally found the agriculture office, which was down on the bottom level, quite far from where we were. We were running with our carry-on luggage to the place. They wouldn’t let more than one person in there, I went in, the dog was released, but they didn’t give us any way to transport the carrier to the next flight to get to the Big Island. Kevin had to run back to the gate to get a luggage cart. We still had to check-in the dog crate and get through security again. We were literally running through it all. By the time we got to the gate, they were already boarding and were almost done. We barely made it!
We arrived to our new house, what we found was both disappointing and full of potential. This huge three-story single-wall construction house, started in 2005, was made of solid teak, but was in bad shape, was never finished on the inside, outside was in disrepair, rats nests in the cabinets, windows that were rusted open with a leaking roof and windows. But we bought it so it, so we were all in and this was our new project. Over the next months we planned what we needed to do to change the floorplan to turn it into an amazing Bed and Breakfast. We found an architect who would work with us and this massive house. It took a year to get the permits to make the changes, and during that time we started furring out all of the interior walls and changing the layout. We found a great crew of locals to help us with the work and they have all become part of the family now. We replaced the windows, installed interior doors, and replaced the roof with a new truss system. We acquired various farm animals to control the grass on the large lot and now we have a full-fledged farm with goats, sheep, cows, pigs and chickens. We had our cattle dog and some cats that help with the rodent control. I was going back and forth between Oregon and Hawaii while Kevin stayed with the job.
It will be three years by the time we are able to open, and it’s been a long, difficult road. But the end results are amazing! We found a local mill operator with all the local wood we needed to finish the interior walls, with beautiful custom designs and finishes. We can’t wait to share what we have done with everyone who stays with us. The top two floors are entirely guest quarters with 6 rooms, each with it’s own bathroom, view, and lanai (deck). Each floor has 3 of the bedrooms with baths, a kitchen, laundry room, dining room and living room with ocean facing lanais (deck) and BBQ. Kitchens and bathrooms have granite counter tops. The top floor features a huge dining lanai (deck) large enough to host events. Our quarters will be on the bottom level, separated so guests can have their privacy.
We love our new Hawaii home and have become permanent residents. Book now for our August 1st, 2024 opening! We can’t wait to host you in this wonderful estate that is now our Hawaiian Home!
–Your Hostess, Sue
