Denby Fawcett’s column in Civil Beat this week is an essay on the trend towards remaking local neighborhoods by clearing small, older homes and replacing them with “monster homes.”

She bemoans the clearing of lots, which includes cutting down mature mango and plumeria trees, along with other tropical foliage, in order to install the maximum possible floor area, with buildings now stretching from property line to property line. Well, there is a required five foot setback between neighbors, but its surprising how small that space can feel.

Real estate agents call what I consider to be overbuilding “maximizing the value of a property.”

Honolulu architect John Black says people are building what he calls “monster houses” not just in Hawaii but also all over the country.

“It’s a new way of building,” says Black. “You build right up to the lot line and as high as you can. The feeling is the bigger the better.”

…Black says the idea of air-conditioned “monster houses” on Oahu lots where all the vegetation has been purged seems particularly sad. In Hawaii, life’s pleasure should be to sit outside in a lush garden to enjoy the sun and the natural trade winds.

Her column hits home with me.

Ten years ago, Pacific Business News profiled my parents and their WWII-era home in Kahala (“Sun sets on old Kahala homes, Long-time owners of smaller older homes now live in the shadows of gated mansions“).

The PBN article traces the real estate cycles that have produced the current crop of monster homes in the neighborhood, and comments on the passing of Old Kahala.

The backyard of John and Helen Lind’s Kahala home is seeing more shade from the afternoon sun these days.

It’s not from the large mango tree they planted behind their home in 1947, but from the two-story home being built next door, which towers over the Linds’ 63-year-old single-story house on Kealaolu Avenue.

On the other side of the Lind home, a concrete foundation awaits the frame for another two-story house. A concrete block wall erected over three days in June replaced Helen Lind’s croton hedge, which had separated the two properties for years.

Sandwiched between these two residential construction projects is the 1,200-square-foot, three-bedroom house the Linds bought in 1943 for $6,000, “less $100,” John Lind said. “There was a scratch on the floor.”

Actually, there are two trees in the back yard. One planted when my sister was born, the other when I was born. They are now large, beautiful trees, still producing lots of fruit during good years.

After my parents died several years ago, we had to make a decision on what to do with their house. And it was the thought of a new owner bringing in a bulldozer to uproot the trees and scrape up any remaining bits of greenery that convinced us to find a way to save the property. And we have managed, rebuilding mostly in the footprint of the original house so that the trees can continue to spread their shade.

But walking or driving through Kahala today does make you wonder about the architectural profession. There are remarkably few newer homes that seem to give any thought to their surroundings or pay homage in any way to the island community they are part of. Neither the choices of materials nor the designs reflect anything of Hawaii.

“Sense of place” is apparently just a slogan, not something we encourage in practice.

There are the almost ubiquitous walls. Not fences to keep the dogs in, but walls to keep out the prying eyes of neighbors, which effectively prevent neighbors from eventually becoming friends. It’s hard to say hello and exchange a few words with those living nearby when they hide behind the walls of their suburban fortresses.

My mother hated the walls. She seethed when the new owners on one side dug out the panax hedge that had separated their home from my parents for more than 60 years, and replaced it with a concrete block wall. I suppose they gained some privacy. What they lost is far more precious.

There are too many homes that look like suburban bank buildings, with massive, out of place columns marking their entries, in case you happen to miss the oversized doors. It looks like those columns were almost required during certain time periods. Large homes, and larger ones, almost all sport their version of the column look. No trees, because they were cut down, but columns to trigger some dim primal memory of solid tree trunks.

The empty but well maintained mansions of the 1/10th of 1% that line the shoreline are sort of offensive, if truth be told. We often try to imagine what kind of a staff it must take to keep the inside of one of those monsters clean. It’s not pretty.

Meanwhile, by today’s standards, the homes next door that a decade ago seemed to dwarf my parents’ old house are starting to look less unreasonable.