A small group of friends and neighbors in Niu Valley gathered quietly on Sunday to honor and say aloha to a century-old tree apparently felled by a new property owner to make way for a new, treeless home.
It took a century or so for this tree to reach this size.
It probably took a day to cut it down.
Should we be doing more to protect and preserve our trees? Should we see residential deforestation as a contributor to climate change and do more to stop it? How about incentives for keeping and caring for these expansive old trees? After all, trees are expensive to maintain. Honolulu gives tax breaks to those who preserve historic homes. What about similar property tax breaks for retaining trees of a certain age and size? Other ideas?
Vanessa Jansen shared a poem.
Trees are the kindest things I know.
They do no harm. They simply grow.
And spread a shade for sleepy cows…
And gather birds among the boughs…
They are the first when day’s begun
To touch the beams of morning sun…
They are the last to hold the light
When evening changes into night.
And when a moon floats in the sky
They hum a drowsy lullaby
Of sleepy children long ago.
Trees are the kindest things I know.
Here are a few photos of the gathering.
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Mahalo Ian for covering such a tragic loss to our community. If only the new homeowner cared enough to build around this magnificent tree. I certainly would support a tax break for those who have to maintain large trees so that they aren’t considered a liability but the real treasures that they are.
We ought to have both incentives and rules. Large trees provide benefits not only to the property owner but to the neighborhood by providing shade an aesthetic benefits at the least.
CHAN,WINNIE Y TR Fee Owner
CHAN,STEPHANIE Y M TR Fee Owner
I checked out the tree in its glory days using Google Earth—corner of Kawaikui and Halemaumau. I saw an enormous tree on a smallish lot. The tree towered over the modest house. Its trunk was only a few feet from the house, and its branches extended over most of the lot, including the house, and appear to have extended over portions of a neighboring lot. The roof of the house had a considerable layer of leaves on it. It’s a stunning sight—you rarely see so fragile a house with so large a tree towering over it. I would not have wanted to spend a single night in that house.
I think it would have been very difficult and dangerous to build another house on that lot while keeping the tree. There would have been the ongoing danger of falling branches, and who can say what would have happened if a tropical storm or worse visited Niu Valley. Would the tree have stood firm or toppled over?
No way of knowing what kind of root system the tree had. Its roots may have been very shallow, poorly anchoring the tree, and they might have extended into neighbors’ yards, causing problems for them.
A beautiful tree in the wrong place.
What no one has acknowledged is that monkeypods drop TONS of trash. Zigzaganaut mentioned that the old house had a thick layer of leaves on the roof. What he probably could not see is that the gutters were completely clogged as well. Also, if you are so unfortunate as to park your car near or under a monkeypod, at certain times of the year you will find your car completely covered in tree trash. You will also find your vents clogged with flowers and leaves.
So, yes shed a tear for the tree. But before you excoriate the property owner for cutting it down, try living under one for a whole. I am all for trees and I the new property owner plants a few. But a huge monkeypod in a residential lot is the wrong tree in the wrong place.
We all know with a large tree comes a bit of commitment. Yes the former owners let the tree debris accumulate on the former house, but that accumulation was caused by neglect of that owner. It is my opinion that a 7500 square foot property can have a large tree on it, and it can be an asset to the property, especially if that tree is located at a far end corner of the property like this one was. Unless of course the current owners were planning on building a “Monster House” maxing out the property line with building materials, in which case we have a whole new set of problems.
Also, “Anonymous” don’t waste our time unless you want to take credit for your comment. A tree doesn’t dump rubbish, humans dump rubbish. Rubbish.
According to recent news stories, Honolulu is seeing a number of lots where trees are being cleared for all-house lots by Chinese developers. See:
http://www.kitv.com/story/36434744/monster-homes-triggering-push-back-from-neighbors
“She is alarmed at rate of old homes being torn down by Chinese contractors.”
I don’t know if these folks are local or recently moved to the islands, but in either case, they clearly have a different set of values. The strangest part to me, and I mean really strange, is how Hawaii is a famous and highly sought after destination because of the beauty of it’s natural environment, and yet people like these developers are willing to wipe all this out just to make money(??). If we allow Honolulu to be turned into a high-density city Hong Kong, won’t we have lost something rare and special? Local real estate agents I talk to say, “If it’s going to happen anywhere in Hawaii, it should happen on Oahu,” but that just sounds to me like self-justification for people who’d do anything to make money.
My name is Gregg and I was born in1956, the same year my family moved into that house at 222 Halemaumau St. (the site of the felled monkeypod). That was my house and my tree! We moved out in 1967. Both were beautiful works of art: one was destroyed by termites and thoughtless homeowners and the other by greedy new homeowners alien to the Hawaiian lifestyle who value house size over natural beauty. The tree could have been cut back – it had been once already and grew back nicely. I feel a pit in my stomach as though a close friend has been murdered. The other thing is. how popular do you think the new “neighbors” will be with the Niu folk, who gazed at that beautiful tree while driving in and out of the valley? They lost an old friend. Now instead their eyes will be met with some ubiquitous modern two story eyesore. How tragic. I cry for my tree. Thank you for your beautiful poem Vanessa!!
I feel that pit in my stomach, too, Gregg. It’s so terrible what those buyers did. We miss the tree a lot.
I lived in Niu Valley until 1963 across the street from the beautiful tree. I just feel that so much beauty has been destroyed all around us in the name of progress and The almighty dollar. Now the neighborhoods are slowly being chipped away. Parts of Waikiki and surrounding areas are almost unrecognizable. I mourn the loss of the tree for it’s history, beauty, and for the memories that are locked inside its lovely branches. The end of another area. The house I lived in at 215 is unrecognizable and brought me to tears. My memories of Niu Valley are precious to me, and now they live on in my heart.