The Great Gatsby and the Maui Baldwins
When I was in graduate school at the University of Southern California, I met one of the Maui Baldwins. If you were to ever visit Maui, you would see signs of their presence everywhere from Baldwin Beach to Baldwin Avenue, to the Baldwin Home Museum in Lahaina.
Jeremy was studying architecture at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles at the same time. He showed me drawings and renderings of imaginary homes, with just the barest outlines of a design. He told me he was working on a language of architecture. A year later, I would visit him in Makawao, to meet the Baldwins at their family estates. We stayed in one of their properties at the top of Olinda Road, at the end of the water line.
Family Trees
Located on 60 acres in the Upcountry region of Makawao in East Maui, Hawaii, Jeremy’s great-Uncle, Henry Alexander Baldwin, built the estate. His father, Johnny Baldwin, was a fifth-generation descendant of the Rev. Dr. Dwight Baldwin, great-grandson of Henry Perrine Baldwin and grandson of Frank F. Baldwin. Henry Perrine Baldwin, H.A.'s father, co-founded Alexander & Baldwin, one of the “Big Five” corporations that dominated the economy of the Territory of Hawaii.
Family trees were important to Jeremy Castle Baldwin. His grandmother was Virginia “Tootie” Castle, a descendant of another prominent missionary family in Hawai’i. She was the daughter of Harold K.L. Castle, who was descended from one of the founders of Castle & Cooke.
Makawao, Maui
Their rustic home in Makawao had been neglected over the years. Although weathered and worn, the solid wood floors and gorgeous millwork paneling highlighted the red brick fireplace and exposed beams. There were six huge bedrooms, a formal dining room and a spiral mahogany staircase. Jeremy’s plan was to bring it back to its former glory.
I spent most of my days on the verandas, reading and sunbathing, while Jeremy worked on renovating the house and clearing the overgrown Koa groves. We were surrounded by state and Haleakala ranch lands, hidden behind a gate, accessible only via a tree-lined dirt road.
One day, we took a road trip to Hana, to the Pools of Ohe’o, the Seven Sacred Pools in the Hana Forest Reserve. We hiked the Haleakala crater, and sometime after that, took his father’s motoryacht to the island of Lanai.
Jeremy’s grandmother lived nearby on Olinda Road, in a much larger plantation-style manor, walking distance to his father’s matching home. Further down the road, the Frank Baldwin/H.F Rice residence had been nominated for preservation by the Historic Hawaii Foundation. A two-story Dutch colonial house with shingle siding and a gambrel roof, it sat on a large landscaped lot with a rolling front lawn. The property, with sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean, Wailuku, and Kahului, was the work of master architect C. W. Dickey, who was the premier architect in Hawaii during the opening decades of the twentieth century.
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East Egg and West Egg
Jeremy had two brothers, Dr. Kittridge Baldwin, a physician, and Thomas, a modern-day version of Tom Buchanan from The Great Gatsby. Of all of the families that I have met over the years, the Baldwin family most closely resembled the Gatsby characters. Their stately homes were reminiscent of Baz Lurhman’s portrayal in the 2013 movie adaptation of the book, but with an Island, not an East Coast, style. The proximity of family members and the island setting brought back memories of the novel, with its setting on fictional East Egg and West Egg in Long Island, New York. My father had been a huge fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and had written his own master’s thesis on The Great Gatsby as a graduate student in English at Columbia University in New York.
In January 2021, the copyright expired on The Great Gatsby, opening the door to many more adaptations, sequels and prequels. Let’s take a walk further down memory lane to the roaring 20s, and visit Gatsby’s estate in West Egg.
Gatsby’s Estate
According to Architectural Digest, the designs for the residence were based on the great early-20th-century houses of Long Island’s North Shore. Places like Oheka Castle, La Selva, and Beacon Towers provided the foundation, while digital enhancements added turrets and towers. In the film, Gatsby’s mansion became a castle, befitting a newly crowned King. Lurhman’s wife, Catherine Martin, headed production and costume design. There were 42 individual sets in and around Sydney, Australia, including St. Patrick’s Seminary.
Gatsby’s ballroom was the centerpiece of the home, and the setting for his elaborate parties. In keeping with his taste for excess, ornate crystal chandeliers hung from the gold-filigree ceiling. A marquetry floor had Gatsby’s monogram inlaid at the center. A serpentine staircase led to the upper floors and to Gatsby’s master bedroom on the mezzanine level, in a tower with soaring ceilings. The harlequin-patterned silk wall coverings were crisscrossed with wood paneling. A gray and gold Art Deco rug was the centerpiece.
A Quieter View of Wealth
Daisy and Tom lived in East Egg, in a Georgian manor, inspired by Old Westbury Gardens. Formal gardens surround Old Westbury, a stately mansion in Long Island. The Buchanans’ home, which is described in the book as an enormous pile of red bricks, is a much “quieter view of wealth.” According to Architectural Digest, the exterior was built on a soundstage with digital flourishes added in post-production. The sitting room was decorated with Hollywood Regency- and Deco-inspired furnishings. Contemporary art graced the walls.
Much more in the style of East Egg restraint than West Egg excess, in 2017, the Baldwins put their house at the top of Olinda Road up for sale, and two years later, in March 2019, it sold for $3.1M. Since then, Alexander & Baldwin said a total of 38% of tenants have asked for some form of rent relief because of the coronavirus closures. That number rises to 66% for restaurants and 76% for soft goods retailers.
“I believe rent receipts might have been higher had we not chosen to work proactively with our tenants to help protect their long-term health and cash flows, which we believe will provide A&B with greater stability over time,” Chris Benjamin, president and CEO of Honolulu-based A&B, told analysts during an earnings call in April. “We are working with each impacted tenant on a case-by-case basis.”
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