Our story begins

June, 2004: Lisa, our two cats Kea and Loa, and I arrived on Kaua’i to stay and call this place home. After two years of living close to the land in the isolated community of Kipahulu, we have the experience and knowledge to make a go of it here on Kaua’i. It is with huge gratitude for the openhearted love, sharing and support we found in the loving and conscious community at Kipahulu that we leave the island of Maui.

Last summer, my father Gordon Claude Barker, died at the age of 72 here in his home of 18 years. This land has been many things over the years, and now it’s our turn to make this place our home.

This series shows the place as it was the last year my father lived here, 2002-2003.

This is an overhead view (taken from the Sleeping Giant) showing the lot and environs.
You can see that there still is a lot of pasture land around the place, but the pineapples are really a thing of the past…

This is the Ranch House as it looked when my father was living there. My friends Dawn and Jonathan took care of the place after his death while Lisa and I were finishing out our time on Maui. Jonathan dubbed the place Haleloa (meaning “long house”) because of it’s oddly long and narrow shape. I have many childhood memories of staying in this house. The tree framing the top of this shot is one of a number of very old, large, and prolific lychee trees on the land. As kids, we ate our fill of these delicious, unusual fruits.

This is where I plan to build a new house. I have a page for the design and basic specs if you want to see a 3-D rendering of my design. It may not seem especially inspiring from the photo, but this location has the advantage of nice views in two directions, is well removed from neighboring houses and gets the best morning sun on the property. Having spent time here, I have realized that value of this as (believe it or not, and you mainlanders will certainly scoff!) the mornings often seem damp and chilly during the winter. Mostly this is due to the Sleeping Giant in the east delaying the morning sun as you will see in the next photo.

Here we have one of the views we will be getting. This is the back of Nonou Mountain (The Sleeping Giant), and though there isn’t much detail here, it’s really quite pretty. We will get a better view of it at the height we will be at, and also views to the south, including Mt. Waialeale. To the northeast, we will have an expansive view of Anahola Peak and the ocean, although you can’t see it now due to many large trees and you need to be higher up.

In the foreground is the open area in the center of the property which gets mowed presently, but we will be putting in gardens and various other plantings. These details will be outlined on the agriculture page when the planning matures a little.

Here we see a bit of rampant growth shown as a point of reference for later developments. On the left is an area presently planted in landscaping plants in a deal my father made with a friend of his. They are in the process of being removed, but it’s a really big job— you can’t see but a tiny fraction of what is there.