Japanese Jewelbox
This Makiki home gets all the details right—from the tatami room to the traditional Japanese furo.
 Photo by Hal Lum |
When their daughter was accepted into a private school in Honolulu, this long-time Kailua couple decided it was time to move into town to create the perfect new home for the next stage of their lives.
Having both been born in Japan and spent many years there, in addition to living in the Mainland, London and Hong Kong, the two had a very clear idea of what they wanted even before they hired local architect Richard Bass: A Hawaii-appropriate home that also included strong Japanese elements, and adhered to the basic principles of feng shui. A traditional Chinese practice that guides the arrangement of the built environment, feng shui’s principles dictate everything from the orientation of a house to the arrangement of furniture within it.
For example, the owners wanted the structure’s layout to be square, with no protrusions or voids to impede the positive flow of energy. Inside, they kept things simple and open, with a straightforward floor plan and wide hallways. Interestingly, all the house’s plumbing is routed along the exterior, so that no wastewater passes under the living areas. “It’s a sanitary issue,” says the wife. “If you think about it, you don’t want waste lines from the bathroom crossing your kitchen area.”
All these rules and principles, far from being restrictive, gave Bass clarity when designing the home. “The vocabulary of this house was set very early on,” he says. “It wasn’t difficult to develop the plans for the house, because there was a clear definition of how it had to be. I don’t think that the room locations have changed at all from the original sketch.”
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Clockwise from top right: (1) When opened up, the tatami sitting room gives the TV room some sunlight and ventilation. (2) The entire perimeter of the property has been landscaped, to give each room a serene view. (3) A sweeping staircase and a rock garden give the front entrance a dramatic feel. (4) Fine details are everywhere, including the dovetail corners of the eaves.Photos by Hal Lum |
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The site, not far from Punahou School, boasts a panoramic view of Honolulu, and the two-story house takes full advantage of it, with pocket doors in both the dining/living room downstairs and the master bedroom upstairs opening up to wide lanai areas. The owners resisted the urge to squeeze in a glut of tiny rooms—two bedrooms and two bathrooms were plenty for their needs—and as a result, each part of the house feels spacious and airy. “Being so open, it definitely has an Island style to it, but I think it’s still Asian in the way it deals with spaces,” Bass says. “The whole indoor/outdoor living thing is tropical, but traditional Japanese architecture has been doing that forever.”
 Photo by Hal Lum |
Of course, with the big picture so well defined, Bass had plenty of time to sweat the details. “It turns out to actually be harder to do a simple box house well than it is to do a big, wild house with all sorts of stuff,” he says. “There’s nothing to distract you from the little things.”
He chose the contractor, Commercial Contracting Hawaii, with this in mind; CCH owner Bob Prevost’s specialty is custom woodwork, and Bass encouraged him to make the most of a rich selection of light-grained woods—maple, fir, ipe (ironwood) and three different varieties of cedar, including Spanish, yellow and Port Orford.
Prevost obliged, filling the house with clean, sophisticated work—custom cabinetry, doors, trim, lanai decks and railings, flooring—that was finished off with beautiful touches such as dovetail joints.
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 The kitchen remains Western in its use of appliances, but incorporates Japanese touches such as the circular wall opening with bamboo inserts.Photos by Hal Lum
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“It’s like a jewelry box, it really is,” says Bass. “The attention to detail was amazing. Everything was tight, and the pieces were well selected. He wasn’t just installing the next piece of wood on the pile.”
To complement the exquisite woodwork, Japanese design elements abound. Visitors can remove their shoes in the genkan, or doorway area, before stepping up into the main house. A beautifully finished sitting room with tatami mats and shoji screens adjoins the more conventional TV area downstairs, and acts as a convenient guest room or private area.
The owners have even incorporated a furo, the traditional Japanese bath that includes a separate area for cleaning up before bathing in the steep-sided tub. (They did compromise a bit by using a conventional porcelain tub rather than an all-wood construction, which would have tended to leak.)
A less obvious Japanese influence on the house’s design is in the thoughtful use of space. The downstairs bathroom, for example, looks out onto a small garden that is walled for privacy. But by opening up the side of the garden closest to the back door, Bass was able to get double duty out of the area, making it visible to visitors without letting them peek into the bathroom. The tatami room, when it’s not being used as a private space, can be opened all the way up to expand the living room area.
Bass and the owners also saved space by going small where they could. Rather than devoting an entire room to laundry and utilities, they decided to pack the washer and dryer in a small and efficient closet area near the back entrance. “I actually like this idea a lot, and I think I’m going to try to convince others to use the concept,” says Bass. “So often the laundry room is a huge, wasted space.”
The master bedroom’s closet, too, got the shrinking treatment. No his-and-hers walk-in palace here; the owners’ clothes are kept in a closet you might expect to find in a condominium. “I’d rather look at beautiful furniture rather than the door of a closet, so why waste the space,” the wife points out. “And Japanese style is that you keep the seasonal clothes that you need nearby, and put the rest into storage, so you don’t have every item of clothing you own in the closet at the same time.”
 Photo by Hal Lum |
The square footage gained with tricks such as this was put to good use. The upstairs hallway, for example, has been expanded into something more than just a passageway from one room to another. “It’s a place for the family to cross paths and talk and figure out what’s happening for the day. It’s the hub of the living quarters,” says Bass.
 Pocket doors fold back into the dining room walls, giving an uninterrupted view of urban Honolulu.Photo by Hal Lum |
And because the owners are very private people, Bass incorporated a number of multi-staged and hidden areas. The downstairs bathroom, for example, functions as a small powder room for guests until you open up a second door to the furo bath area. The tatami sitting room’s side wall conceals a storage area in which to stash futons and other bedclothes. The kitchen hides a full office work space, complete with family bulletin board, that can be tucked away when guests come over.
Even the house itself manages to hide itself from the road a bit; because the driveway to the property exits via a private side street, there’s only a walk-in gate at the front. Given the house’s orientation, this makes the back entrance the most-used one, and Bass says he made sure not to pay it short shrift. “I wanted [the owners’] personal entrance to be just as exciting as the one you give to your guests. Both of them are strong.”
 The downstairs bathroom includes a traditional Japanese bath, complete with an enclosed shower area in which to clean up beforehand.Photo by Hal Lum
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Another, more subtle nod to privacy is in the house’s ease of upkeep. The owners do, after all, have to live in the house, and they wanted to make sure that the task of keeping it running was manageable without outside help. Two bathrooms are easy to clean, and the lack of rugs or carpeting means no vacuuming. Even the manicured Japanese landscaping can be maintained without much fuss. “We like to do everything on our own, and not hire anyone,” says the wife. “We hired an architect and a builder and now we’re good to go.”
Of course, there is one small wrinkle to living in a jewel box: you don’t want to mess it up. The family moved into the house late last year, and the wife says she’s still awed by the place.
“I’m having a hard time putting nails in the wall,” she admits. “There’s lots of blank spaces that I need to decorate, but it’s hard to do it. It’s just so beautiful.”
Architect: Richard R. Bass Architects, 373-9791, www.rrbarchitect.com
Contractor: Commercial Contracting Hawaii Inc.
Landscape Architect: Crane and
Sekimizu Corp.
