Love Historic Homes? Check Out This 1920s Kaimukī Plantation Cottage For Sale

It may be tiny, but this renovated 90-year-old home has a lot of charm.

Photos: Courtesy of Gold Coast Real Estate Inc.

Calling all historic plantation home lovers: This charming Kaimukī gem was built in 1928 as the model home in a development of eight Kaimukī plantation cottages. The home at 618 11^th Avenue has been beautifully restored, with all the modern creature comforts and then some, without losing an ounce of what makes Hawaiʻi’s plantation homes so special. It’s quaint, with two bedrooms, one bathroom and just 943 square feet of interior space on a 2,100-square-foot lot. Sure, it’s small, but a peek at the photos and you’ll start wondering just how much of your stuff you could do without.

The home is 90 years old. “This was one of the first subdivisions of Honolulu, with Kaimukī being the city’s solution to affordable housing for downtown Honolulu,” says listing agent Pat Ferraris of Gold Coast Real Estate. “The stock market crashed the next year, greatly affecting the sale of the development, with some of the two-bedroom, one-bath cottages immediately falling into foreclosure.”

The cottage has been renovated down to the bones, with as much preserved as possible, including roof trusses, built-in finishes, the original Glenwood Gas stove and oven and the double-hung windows. In 2010, the owners did it all: new plumbing, electrical and gas lines, on-demand natural gas for tiki torches and the barbecue, restored tongue-and-groove oak flooring, split air conditioning, Dutch doors front and back for airflow and even built-in koa and mango dining benches and table. The kitchen is casually elegant, with custom granite and a Sub Zero refrigerator-freezer with glass doors. Single-wall construction was changed to double-wall both indoors and out and a front patio was built, as well as a back patio with a Hot Springs Spa.