Historic Hanapepe, Kauai
“When you’re driving down Hanapepe Road, you have this feeling you’re going through an Old West town,” said Carol Bain of the Hanapepe Economic Alliance.
The town has gone through many evolutions since the first wave of Chinese immigrants came to work on the sugar and pineapple plantations in the early 1900s. Hanapepe became a sizable merchant and farmer town, with a distinctive plantation-style architecture. In the 1970s and 1980s, artists and craftspeople moved in and the town went through an arts renaissance.
This year the alliance introduced a 1½-mile historic walking tour of the town with a self-guided map. The map provides a history of Hanapepe’s commercial buildings, several of which are on the state and national historic registers. One building, currently a woodshop and gallery, has been a nightclub, a barbershop and even a bowling alley. A pinsetter at the bowling alley later became mayor of Kauai and the first mayor of Filipino descent in the United States.
The town now boasts 11 galleries, and for more than 10 years the galleries have opened their doors and lit up the streets to host the festive “Art Night in Hanapepe,” every Friday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
“There is a lot of diversity in terms of the types of art,” said Joanna Carolan, owner of Banana Patch Studio, with works ranging from watercolors, oils, batik, marble, basket weaving, ceramics and koa wood sculptures and furniture.
“No two galleries really have artwork that are similar,” she said, unlike some other popular gallery towns in Hawaii.
Historic Hanapepe, Kauai
808-335-5944
www.kauai.net/hanapepe/
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