Kūali‘i, The Charles Montague Cooke, Jr. and Eliza Lefferts Cooke House and Its Place in Hawai‘i's History
SAT AUG 9, 9-11 am, with architectural historian Bill Chapman
$60 per person, including printed materials and light refreshments
Join us for a special Mānoa Heritage Center Perspectives Tour with anthropologist, historian, and architectural historian William (Bill) Chapman. This immersive experience explores Kūali‘i, the residence of Charles Montague Cooke, Jr. (Monte) and Eliza Lefferts Cooke (Lila), and its significance to Hawai‘i's history and culture.
This presentation focuses on the Cooke residence, built in 1911-1912 in what is commonly referred to as the Tudor Revival Style. This talk will center on the attributes of the style, commonalities with the contemporaneous Craftsman or Arts and Crafts Movements, the history of the house's construction, and the place of Kūali‘i both in the history of architecture in Hawai‘i and for its importance as a marker of class and ethnicity in early Territorial-period Hawai‘i.
Bill will examine the house in all its aspects: aesthetic, material, historical, symbolic, and economic. He will discuss the:
- History and geography of the site
- Cooke and Lefferts families
- Architects Emory and Webb, the house's designers
- Elements of Style: Tudor Revival and Craftsman
- Construction technology
- Architectural details
- Origin of the name
- Kūka‘ō‘ō Heiau and its significance to the site
- Arts and Crafts-period gardens
Note: While Kūali‘i is the focus of this tour, participants will not be touring inside of the home. It is not yet open to the public.
About the presenter:
William (Bill) Chapman is Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate program in Historic Preservation in the School of Architecture, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Educated at Columbia (M.S. in Historic Preservation, 1978) and Oxford University in England (D.Phil. in Anthropology, 1982), he specializes in architectural recording, the history of historic preservation, and materials conservation. He is widely published in scholarly journals and has written on subjects ranging from the historic Volcano House Hotel in Hawai‘i to the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. His recent publication is Architectural Conservation in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands (New York: Routledge, 2024).
This special program is limited to 12 guests.
Mānoa Through Time is a new public tour series that offers a deeper exploration of Mānoa’s rich history, culture, and landscape. Join experts in their respective fields for an engaging 120-minute tour and conversation that will expand your understanding of this storied valley. Each experience concludes with a chance to continue the discussion over a refreshing cup of Hawaiian herbal tea, grown on-site with the presenter.