Hokulani - Real Estate Maui Style

Maui Style ❘ LivingMaui
Hokulani Golf Villas..
Villas
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This new community in Kihei has some surprising built-ins:
The answers to some of the tough questions around home buying.
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PHOTO: Ron Dahlquist
Joseph W. Bean
hoices and decisions, questions and options—from the minute
you start thinking of buying a home, you’re deciding and
answering. It can be overwhelming, but Hokulani Golf Villas
makes a lot of the tough questions easier to handle.
To begin with, if you want a home on a golf course in Kihei, the choice
is very simple. The Hokulani development surrounded by the beautiful fairways of the Elleair Maui Golf Club, formerly the Silversword, are your only
option. Maybe you were—operative word: were, past tense—thinking of West
Maui, but the $2.9 million median price for Ka‘anapali is out of reach for most
of us. Kihei is much more affordable. These single family homes being built
mauka of the Pi‘ilani Highway and just makai of the Research & Technology
Park at Lipoa Street are set to sell for $1.1 to $1.5 million—not at all bad as golf
course estates go these days.
Let’s take a look at the toughest question facing most people when they
try to decide which home to buy on Maui. Condo or house? The pleasures
of owning a house include space and privacy and the completely intangible
thing called pride of ownership. In a way, owning a condo is still apartment
living, and doesn’t “do it” for some buyers. Owning a house, “now that’s
something.” On the other hand, owning a house means owning a yard. Do
you really want to do yard work? It also means keeping your place clean and
painted, seeing that hedges are trimmed and trees are pruned, and that the
whole property is otherwise maintained. This is not just about keeping up
with the Joneses next door and around the corner. It is also essential to maintain the value and longevity of your home.
The answer to the condo or house conundrum is simple at Hokulani
Golf Villas. You get the best of both. This luxurious community of 152
single-family homes is being built out at only about 60 percent of the legally
allowed density, so you get a real house and substantial space. What’s more
that space feels even more expansive than it is because every lot faces a fairway or a park or a reserved open space. You have all the benefits of owning
a house, but here’s the thing: The home owners association handles the
exterior maintenance.
From the landscaping to the lawn mowing and everything else that can
be seen from the street or from the Jones’s picture window, you have no
worries. When you hear that, you might think, “Oh, no. My yard will look
just like every other yard.” Not at all. The landscapers have chosen to landscape each lot separately, considering the views, house sizes and window
placements.
Now, that may have left you concerned that the developer, Signature
Development of Hawai‘i, is depending on individual landscaping plans and
differing views to make each home distinctive. Again, not at all. The landscaping
is just one factor. While the homes are designed to fit together into a cohesive
community, they are also designed to have the look and feel of a real community—not rows of identical homes. The curving roads and central parks
help break things up, but even those things are just elements of a plan that is
unique in itself and very effective for making your home uniquely your own.
There are six different house plans, all of them tailored to Hawai‘i and
with features you don’t often find on Maui. “We took six tried and proven
floor plans from Signature’s operations on the Mainland and had them all
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Maui Style ❘ LivingMaui
Hawaiian-ized,” said Vincent Palmieri, the
Broker-in-Charge at ‘Aina Maui Properties,
the listing agents. “They gave them C. W.
Dickey roof lines and larger windows. They
enlarged the outdoor living areas with up to
500 square feet of covered lanai space.”
It would be easy to think that having
six different houses to choose among and
152 lots with such variables as their views,
their proximity to the pool and recreation
room, and their elevation… the choices
would be getting harder again. But, no.
Signature Development worked out a plan
for the Hokulani Golf Villas that already
includes which homes are on which lots.
This doesn’t just reduce the mental anguish
of choosing which Hokulani home you
might prefer. It gives you the kind of “whole
package” view of the home that you would
normally only get when buying a resold
house where everything is what it is and
either suits you or doesn’t. That makes
things easier but, at Hokulani you still get to
be the first family to live in the home, and
you still get to make some of the fun choices
about the interior.
Hokulani Golf Villas is condo-easy living
with private-home comforts, and it’s all
pulled together for you. You just choose
one, then finalize the interior to suit
yourself.
What you get when you choose a
Hokulani Golf Villa for yourself and your
family is pretty impressive. Here are a few
features that are sure to please.
• The easy way to develop 152 homes
around two parks in the middle of a golf
course would result in 152 garage doors
facing the curb, giving the streetscape the
look of a forbidding wall of flat, square panels.
At Hokulani, not one garage door faces the
street. “We have chosen a ‘courtyard’
approach, instead,” said Bob Leistikow of
Signature Development Hawai‘i. “You drive
in off the street and into the garage.” It’s a
curving driveway. “And we didn’t want the
curbsides of the homes to look like garagesides either. So, we’ve put in a lot of extra
windows in the garage walls.” The result is a
feeling normally only possible if there is
room for a service road behind the homes
so garages can be tucked away in back, but
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that adds a lot to the land use and development costs. Cleverness trumps wastefulness
in this case.
• The layout of the community ensures that
no two 2-story homes are side-by-side,
increasing both your sense of privacy and
your actual privacy, and giving the whole
community a curb appeal that is almost
“Old World.”
• When you move into a Hokulani villa
you can say, “Now, I’m cooking with gas,”
and it won’t just be a figure of speech. Gas
cook tops and gas water heating are provided
in every home, along with the rare-on-Maui
gas lines to deliver the fuel. What’s more, the
built-in ovens are combos, microwave-conventional. Speaking of the kitchen—an area
where each family’s taste can be very personal—
you get a lot of choices and a lot of help
with your choices. The standard kitchens
are far from “standard” in any sense of the
word. They have custom cabinetry with
glass-accented uppers, granite slab countertops with ceramic tile backsplashes, stainless
steel appliances and a stainless steel sink,
recessed overall lighting and pendant light
over the center island which has a snack bar
overhang. And there’s a formal dining area
as well. If that’s not to your taste, everything
can be changed, and you can really see
what you’re choosing or changing.
Exclusively Yours on Alamaha Street in
Kahului has built a full-size Hokulani Golf
Villas kitchen in their store. When you go
there, you can walk right into your kitchen,
get a real-life feel of the space, and then
decide what you want to change. Better yet,
all the standard appointments are given definite dollar values, and those amounts are
treated as discounts against the appointments and features you choose to buy. So,
getting a different countertop, for instance,
costs the price of that countertop minus the
value of the one that would have been
included. This is not standard operating procedure for developers, but it’s part of how
Signature is trying to make it easy for you to
both choose Hokulani and choose your
specific place in the Hokulani community.
Palmieri put it this way, “Between
Signature’s cooperation and Exclusively
Yours, the interiors can be completely
Some tours propel you to earlier, simpler times on Maui or, maybe, remind you of them.
The back nine of the Elleair golf course surround the 152 homes of Hokulani Golf Villas.
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Maui Style ❘ LivingMaui
Even the community pool and club house at Hokulani Golf Villas are carefree and luxurious—with great views.
customized. Mix, match, use just some
of the standards. You can go completely
crazy.”
• Every home in the development
is being prepared for your high-tech
preferences. Pre-wiring includes all the
electricity and outlets every family
needs for contemporary life. That’s
probably to be expected. Signature
goes above and beyond by also roughing in the wiring for a high-tech security system and surround sound system, too, and the high-tech wiring
package includes plenty of jacks for
cable and phone lines. So, no one will
have to tear up your walls or spend
hours weaving wires into the existing
structure to accommodate your modern
lifestyle.
• Price matters, and these homes
sound like they’d sell for much more
than $1.1 million to $1.5 million. You
expect a much higher price tag on Maui
these days if you’re getting tiled lanais
accessible from both the great room and
the master bedroom, an on-site infinitywaterfall swimming pool, clubhouse,
Monier tile roof, keyless entry, ceramic
tiles in the baths and laundry room,
finished garage interior, gourmet kitchen,
vaulted-coffered ceilings, walk-in closets,
ceramic tile shower and luxurious soaking tub, high-efficiency air conditioning,
and 200 amp electrical service. That’s all
grand, of course, but then there are the
“million-dollar views.”
How can these homes be sold at
these prices? An important part of the
answer is in the timing. The permitting
for the development was completed
back in the early 1990s when the fees
and concessions required of developers
were much less. “We were ahead of the
affordable housing thing,” Leistikow said.
That alone represents a major reduction
in the cost of development.
• On Maui, those views can really
matter. The homes facing Elleair’s holes
10, 11 and 12—along the Piilani
Highway—are at about 81 feet above sea
level, a little higher than that area of the
golf course, too. From there, the property
rises steadily putting the homes at the
top, around the 18th hole, at least 170
feet above sea level. What that translates
into is views, views and more views.
From some lots, the views include
BELOW: The community plan prevents any two 2-story homes
from being built side-by-side, giving the streetscape a far-fromsubdivision appeal.
She's not lost, but maybe lost in thought, in the quiet seclusion of a forest splashed with colorful gingers.
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the West Maui mountains in the distance
and fairways up close with blue water
and sweeping coast between. Others
look out on the slopes of Haleakala, but
also have ocean views and manicured
fairways nearby.
• All this talk of living on a golf
course has to lead some potential homebuyers to think of the game itself. There’s
good news on that front, too. Your special
residents-only deal with Elleair Golf
Club can start as soon as you buy a
Hokulani Golf Villa, no matter when
your home will be ready for move-in.
The residents’ package, according to
Leistikow, is 100 rounds in a year for just
$2,500—and 32 home buyers had already
qualified for that deal by December 1.
There are about 120 more chances. No
hard choices to make there.
Granted, no development is perfect
for everyone. This one—the Hokulani
Golf Villas—is a dead-on match for people who want to combine the liberties of
condo living with the joys of separate
home ownership. The rest of it—the luxurious appointments, the views, the
cohesive community, the convenient
Kihei location and the customizing
options and choices, not to mention the
golf course—is bonus upon bonus.
You can’t go look at a Hokulani
home yet. The first actual construction is
expected to begin about now, some time
around the beginning of February, and
the build-out could take as much as
two-and-a-half years. You can, however, get all the information you need to
make your choices—including viewing
an amazingly realistic video simulation
of the finished development—by calling
Realtors Palmieri and Wendy Peterson at
‘Aina Maui Properties. REMS
Passing by, drivers see no garage doors facing the street and, very intentionally, they see no
real evidence of garages.
This is just an artist’s conception of the kitchen and dining area in a Hokulani villa. You can
see a real kitchen at Exclusively Yours in Kahului.
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