Tour an Immersive Indoor-Outdoor Retreat on Hawaii’s Big Island

Rarified ocean and mountain views form the organic backdrop of Hale Mau’u, a secluded property spanning nearly 5,000 square feet on Hawaii’s Big Island. The design by Walker Warner Architects evokes a dramatic statement in dialogue but also in reverence to the setting, something the private client sought to honor. “She really loves Hawaii and wanted to be very intentional and respectful,” says Catherine Kwong, owner of Catherine Kwong Design, an AD PRO Directory member in San Francisco. “She just was really insightful about wanting to create something new that hadn’t been done before.”

Among the five-bedroom retreat’s four volumes is a small garage linked to a large, central structure housing a living area, kitchen, and family room. Four guest rooms are accommodated within their own respective section of the home as is the primary bedroom. A snaking ipe walkway connects it all, passing through a fecund courtyard of desert foliage and volcanic rock before reaching the pool. “The somewhat unconventional layout of the buildings is in direct response to the site, intentionally designed and positioned to maximize views, privacy, and the weather,” says Greg Warner, founder and partner of fellow AD PRO Directory firm Walker Warner. “It creates a dynamic sense of layering and tension.”

For Kwong, reining in the home’s grandiosity and highlighting its human scale was imperative. To temper the architecture as well as the rugged setting, a restrained modernist lens steered her team to make “moves that are quiet and feel very peaceful and approachable, but also kind of hold their own,” she says. “For us, it was about layering on all these textiles.”

Woven Frissell enriches the living space with texture along with flat-weave rugs atop the polished concrete floors. Vintage pieces, from midcentury seating to antique floor lamps and woven Japanese textiles, are folded in to provide a timeless accessibility. “It’s totally a house for hosting big family get-togethers and lots of people,” Kwong says. “Adding in that handmade vintage materiality helps soften things a lot.”