Friendship Garden
PHOTOS
Garden Entrance Improvement Project
The utility lines fronting Friendship Garden imposed a major safety and aesthetic problem. Families with children parked their cars under high voltage wires with trees towering over them – trees HECO refused to trim – posing a major safety issue. The clear-cut road frontage was ugly. Starting in 2011 the Garden started on a project to place the wires underground.
Our project was funded by:
Friendship Garden’s Scudder Gillmar Endowment
With additional support from:
The Strong Foundation
The Atherton Family Foundation
The H. K. L. Castle Foundation
The Robert R. Midkiff Fund and the Midkiff Family
The Garden’s Board of Directors
Donations from the Community
The people who made it happen:
Francis Hirakami, Electrical Engineer
Mike Beason, Civil Engineer
Ed Farwell, Garden’s representative during construction
Paul’s Electrical Contracting LLC
Paul Adachi
Neal Adachi
Ray Kunishige
The men on the job:
Keith Pongasi, construction foreman
Garen Fergerstrom
Kirtwood Manoha, Jr.
Rolando Dacuycuy
Timothy Low
Nolie Rasay
Joselito Tecson
Ernesto Bantolina
Richard Wessel
Duaine Park
Dustin Tollefsen
Kunitomo Pule
Ben Taliulu
The undergrounding of the utility lines was completed in 2017, the planting improvements will grow into view in the years ahead.
Mahalo to all who participated in this project.
Friendship Garden has hosted and benefited from six Kailua and Kaneohe Boy Scout - Eagle Scout Projects since 2008. The projects include: 1) Identifying and labeling garden plants, 2) Painting the garden's historic "campers' cabin", now the garden's tool shed and entry information center, 3) Improvements to the seating area under the tool shed at the garden's entrance. 4) creating a lovely stone channel at the stream crossing on the lower loop trail, 5) Shoring up the trail embankment at the intersection of the lower and upper loop trails, 6) Rebuilding a retaining wall at the side of the historic tea house.
The original Chinese style tea house concrete bridge dates from the late 1920s. The original wooden structure was destroyed by vandals in the 1960s.
From photographs of the original tea house structure, Janet Gillmar designed the wooden second structure. Walter Ishikawa and Masaru Okamura constructed it in 1984 with material supplied by Ruth Scudder Gillmar.
In early December 2015 an ironwood tree fell onto the tea house roof, severely damaging the roof. The structure was stabilized by Craig Short on December 29 and the roof was reconstructed between July and September of 2016, Volunteer contractor and coordinator Mark Mench, who grew up playing in the garden, was assisted by his father, Ralph, his brothers, Alex and Karl and friend, Sean Knox. Neighbor Bobby Flores obtained building materials from Honsador Lumber Company thanks to Lisa Cain and he obtained roofing material from RSI Allied Building Materials, thanks to Scott Madden. On October 8 volunteer roofers finished the job. Pictured are, left to right, are Mark Villegas, Maika Flores, Bobby Flores, Pridel Buenafe, Oren Saloman. Missing from the photo are Nate Dalpiaz and Kim Villegas.
National Register of Historic Places
Click on image to enlarge
This pamphlet was published by the Trustees of Kokokahi Community Trust to tell how Dr. Theodore Richards successfully accomplished his dream of creating a Christian inter-racial community - where the people of Hawaii could live and play together.
The view on this pamphlet cover is from the tea house in the 1920s.
©2020 Friendship Garden Foundation
PO Box 2902 - Honolulu, HI 96802
Donations