Workers begin shoring up the Baldwin Home Museum | News, Sports, Jobs
Built in 1835 and gutted by the August wildfire, Baldwin Home is Maui’s oldest standing house. The fire left the historic building’s walls cracked and exposed to the elements. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photos
Maui’s oldest standing home got some much-needed support Monday morning in Lahaina as workers from Betsill Brothers Construction and JT’s Concrete Pumping poured 11 massive counterweights to anchor the timbers shoring up its cracked walls.
The Baldwin Home Museum, built in 1835, was gutted by wildfire that decimated Lahaina on Aug. 8, 2023. The adjacent Master’s Reading Room was also gravely damaged. Though the two buildings’ exterior walls remained intact, there were grave worries they might topple at any moment. This prompted Lahaina Restoration Foundation to expedite the project to shore them up.
“According to our architect, Glenn Mason, the damage to the Baldwin Home and Master Reading Room was so great they needed to be shored up as soon as possible,” Foundation Executive Director Theo Morrison said Monday. “They could have fallen down with rains and everything.”
She said the building style, with exterior walls made of rock and coral blocks and lime mortar, relies on the roof and floors to hold the structure together. Lime mortar degrades when exposed to rain.
“There is no bracing,” she said. “It is just blocks stacked on top of each other, held together by lime mortar. You do not want it to be rained on.”
A crew from Betsill Bothers Construction and JT’s Concrete Pumping pours an 8,000-pound counterweight at Lahaina’s Baldwin Home Museum Monday morning.
She said when the Baldwin Home’s roof and floor collapsed, they damaged the walls.
“When they cave in, they can pull the whole wall in,” Morrison said. “There are some major cracks. You can see right through them. We felt it was absolutely imperative that we shore up the building as quickly as we could.”
That meant leapfrogging the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which plans to stabilize and pay most of the costs to restore five of Lahaina’s public historic buildings that were lost in the fire: Old Lahaina Courthouse, Baldwin Home, Masters Reading Room, Old Lahaina Prison and Hale Aloha. She said while the ruins of four of those buildings are fairly stable, the Baldwin Home needed prompt attention.
“Basically, their timeline was a little slow for us for the shoring up of Baldwin Home,” Morrison said.
She said FEMA will reimburse the foundation for the project.
Lahaina Restoration Foundation Chief Engineer Jesse Neizman gestures in front of the Old Lahaina Courthouse while stopping by the historic building Monday.
Betsill Brothers Construction Vice President Bryan Goodnight said the company brought it’s “A Team” for the job.
“We’re very fortunate and honored that we got asked by Theo to help shore up this build ing,” Goodnight said as his crew filled another tall frame with 8,000 pounds of wet concrete Monday. “To be part of history is definitely something to be grateful for.”
Goodnight said the company has never tackled a project of this sort, but it does know how to read a blueprint. Architect Mason provided drawings of how to construct and position the bracing and massive counterweights. Goodnight said the project called for seven 8,000-pound counterweights for Baldwin Home and four 6,000-pound counterweights for the Masters Reading Room.
Eleven of the 14 buildings the Lahaina Restoration Foundation is responsible for were damaged or destroyed by the fire. The foundation owned five of them, including the Baldwin Home and Masters Reading Room. Most others were owned by the state or county, including what Morrison considers the jewel of the mix, Old Lahaina Courthouse.
Opened in 1860 during the reign of King Kamehameha IV, the charred courthouse fronts razed Lahaina Harbor. To its rear, the town’s expansive banyan tree sprouts green leaves from nearby limbs. The portion of tree bordering Front Street remains black and lifeless. Morrison laments the loss of the historic building and its irreplaceable contents.
“The building was just so beautiful,” Morrison said. “With its ohia floors and stair treads going up to the second floor, it was so, so beautiful. The railing going up to the second floor was made of koa.”
Before the fire, Old Lahaina Courthouse was home to the Lahaina Heritage Museum. The community museum was boosted by a major upgrade funded by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation in 2014. The museum covered Lahaina history from the pre-contact era, through the monarchy, missionaries, whaling and plantation life to early tourism.
Morrison is especially pained by the loss of the museum’s most treasured artifact, a Hawaiian flag that flew in front of the courthouse until the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown on Jan. 17, 1893. She says word was sent out to all postmasters to lower the Hawaiian flag. In Lahaina, the postmaster was out that day and the task fell to assistant postmaster Arthur Waal Sr. As an amateur historian, Waal recognized the importance of the flag and the moment.
Fast-forward many years to the day 80-year-old Arthur Waal Jr. walked into Morrison’s office and said he would like her to do an exhibit about his father. Morrison said she ended up visiting Waal Jr. in San Francisco to look through his father’s belongings. Among them was the flag.
“I want to return this to the Hawaiian people,” Waal Jr. reportedly said.
A textile curator from Stanford and Cal-Berkeley framed the flag to properly preserve it. The prized artifact hung on proud display in the museum behind special UV-rated plexiglass right up until the day Lahaina burned.
* Staff Writer Matthew Thayer can be reached at .
- A crew from Betsill Bothers Construction and JT’s Concrete Pumping pours an 8,000-pound counterweight at Lahaina’s Baldwin Home Museum Monday morning.
- Built in 1835 and gutted by the August wildfire, Baldwin Home is Maui’s oldest standing house. The fire left the historic building’s walls cracked and exposed to the elements. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photos
- Lahaina Restoration Foundation Chief Engineer Jesse Neizman gestures in front of the Old Lahaina Courthouse while stopping by the historic building Monday.
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