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Big Island Off the Beaten Track, Part One

Guest Post by Amy Perry Basseches 

Traveling in Hawaii has long been on my bucket list of adventures. Finally, last month, I spent a week with my 20-year old daughter on the Big Island. Ahead of time, we rerouted our itinerary to avoid the small area in the southeast affected by the Kilauea volcano. And the journey was truly memorable. I’ll be sharing three separate aspects of our trip. Rent a 4WD vehicle, explore the full range of possibility, and enjoy. 
 
After landing at Kona Airport on the Island’s west side, we began our trip with several days in Holualoa. Holualoa is a small artist and coffee community in the hills above Kailua-Kona. Mamalohoa Highway winds through the heart of the town, past the wonderful Holuakoa Gardens and Cafe, where we relished several meals, including one with fresh "opah" fish and our first taste of Kona Brewing Company’s Longboard Island Lager. Most of the ingredients are locally sourced (organic fruits, vegetables, herbs, meats, and fish), and eaten under twinkling lights woven into the wood framing. 
 
Satisfied after eating, we wandered into a dozen or more art galleries, bought jewelry, and chatted with folks who have chosen to live and create in this historic island town. We also visited Hula Daddy Coffee Farm, which, like many other coffee producers on the upland slopes of Kona, use the high elevation, constant cloud coverage, and rich volcanic soil to create quality coffee. In fact, one of their coffees (Hula Daddy Kona Coffee, 100% Kona SL-28, Roast: Medium-Light) was selected as the No. 2 coffee on Coffee Review’s list of the Top 30 Coffees of 2017.
 
Our destination on yet another outing was to pay homage to Holualoa’s past as a small Japanese village. We stopped at several sites including a Japanese cemetery, many old buildings from the early 1900s, and Doris’ Place grocery. Japanese immigrants came to Hawaii primarily as sugar laborers in the late 1800s and then worked the coffee country. The cemetery was full of coral and lava rock headstones inscribed with kanji. The markers on buildings included "Dr. Hayashi’s Office and Home, 1897." Lastly, Doris’ Place, staffed since 1948 by Doris herself. We walked in on the store’s 70th anniversary celebration, quite a treat. 
 

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When we descended from Communa 13 on the escalators and spotted about 5 tour groups heading up to the street art (we had the place to ourselves since Pablo wisely headed here first), we took a cable car up into the hillside for glorious vistas of the city ringed by jagged peaks. Then it was on to the city center to see the Botero sculptures and his paintings in the nearby Museo de Antioquia. Botero not only donated his impressive sculptures, paintings, and watercolors to his boyhood museum, he bequeathed his collection of contemporary art by Stella, Frankenthaler, and Andy Katz, among others. For lunch, we headed to the large botanical garden in the center of the city and its signature restaurant, In Situ. One sip of the sublime coconut lemonade and that would be my drink of choice throughout the week. After lunch, we strolled the gardens and spotted large lizards amidst the orchids and bamboo trees. Seven hours after picking me up, Pablo dropped me back off at my hotel. It was indeed a Dream Day. 
 
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This past Saturday on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, the circa-1913 Capawock Theater reopened for the first time in years. Soon to reopen in less than a month is the historic Strand Theater in Edgartown. The person to thank for this monumental effort is Mark Snider, founding director of the newly formed Martha’s Vineyard Theater Foundation. He recently persuaded singer Carly Simon to join his board and help finish raising the $1 million needed for renovations. 

 
Snider and his wife Gwenn are known on both Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket for their philanthropic efforts. As owners of The Winnetu Oceanfront Resort in South Beach, they always insisted that clients pay an extra resort fee that goes to a local hospital. On Nantucket, the Sniders purchased the dormant shell of the circa-1894 Point Breeze hotel in 2012 and converted it into an upscale property now called The Nantucket Hotel. A bigger gift to the locals, however, is the 20,000 square foot expansion of the Boys & Girls Club set to open this summer. As president of Stanmar Inc., an athletic-facility design and construction firm based in Wayland, Snider, 58, knows a thing or two about building a gym. I’ve had the good fortune to meet the Sniders while penning stories on their properties over the years and they’ve always been incredibly passionate about their latest projects at their resorts. It doesn’t surprise me at all that they want to give back to the islands they cherish. 
 

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