Design + Build
Makalei
Community
Makalei
Service
Design + Build
Completed
2021
Location
Makalei, North Kona
A house on the upper slopes of Hualālai in the gated community of Makalei, designed and built by one team, with high pitched ceilings lit from above, the ocean in the distance, and grounds laid out by the same crew that framed it.
Scope
Design · Build · Landscape
Up the mountain
Makalei sits well above the coast on the slope of Hualālai, where the air is cooler, the afternoons cloud over, and the view runs down across the pasture and the lava to the ocean in the distance. It is a gated community and a quiet one. Building here means a different climate from the shoreline: more rain, more green, and a house that wants light more than shade.
So the roofs pitch high and the ceilings follow them, with skylights set through the length of the house. The rooms stay tall and bright even when the cloud comes down in the afternoon.
Inside and out
The kitchen and living room are finished in custom textured walls, made for the house rather than chosen from a catalog. There is a full bar for the evenings. The beds are suspended, their bases hidden, so they seem to float above the floor. Outside, a full-size lap pool runs the length of the lawn. The landscape was designed and planted by us, so the ground around the house was finished with the same care as the house itself. Three bedrooms, four baths, 2,934 square feet, completed in 2021.
Why it matters
Design, construction and landscape ran under one contract. There was no handoff between the house and the ground it sits on, and no one to point at when the two had to meet.
Detail
