Labor of love: Kepaniwai hale being rebuilt
Frank Sinenci is on a mission to revive the destroyed hale, as well as cultural building practices
IAO VALLEY — Every hale he builds feels like home to Native Hawaiian master builder Francis Sinenci. And he’s constructed hundreds across the state.
“When someone says ‘hale’ I’m there,” he said at Kepaniwai Heritage Gardens in Iao Valley on Tuesday morning.
With his “resume” callused on his palms and his “Ph.D.” tapped on the back of his hand in the form of a Hawaiian tattoo, Sinenci said he learned his craft by doing. And by doing so, the 80-year-old garnered valuable experiences and ancestral knowledge.
Even today, he still stacks heavy rocks to build the foundations of hale and heiau with his
Halau Hale Kuhikuhi members work in wet conditions Halau Hale Kuhikuhi program. “It keeps me alive,” he said. At Kepaniwai Heritage Gardens, the crew is fully replacing the traditional Hawaiian hale that was destroyed in 2019, apparently by a thief or thieves who knocked down the aging structure to steal the copper pipes used for its fire suppression system, Maui Native Hawaiian Club members said at the time.
Sinenci, who built the original hale around 20 years ago, said they are downsizing the structure to measure about 25 feet by 45 feet so that it’s more maintainable.
According to the Maui County Department of Parks and Recreation, the county-funded project also involves the installation of a fire suppression system to include a water storage tank and fire pump, a fire suppression waterline, electrical connections and other improvements.
Ke Kula ‘O Pi‘ilani, the private Hawaiian immersion elementary school within the park, is going to maintain and use the hale as a multipurpose structure.
Work started in December and is expected to wrap up in June.
The goal is to create a “winwin-win situation,” where the physical hale is built, the owners are educated and culture is perpetuated, Sinenci said.
Last week, he was recognized by the state Legislature for his
30 years of “expert work” training a new generation of practitioners, constructing numerous hale and restoring heiau and fishponds in communities across Hawaii, spearheading the creation of the Indigenous Architecture Building Code, piloting a hale builder certification program and founding his traditional school, Halau Hale Kuhikuhi.
He was also named a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts fellow — the organization awards a limited number of lifetime honors to individuals in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the nation’s diverse artistic heritage, according to its website.
Also known as Kumu Palani or Uncle Francis, he’s been recognized across the state as a master at his craft and received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree for his literary teachings at universities.
Even with the many adventures he’s had — getting his emergency medical technician’s license decades ago, restoring a royal Tahitian wall and parachuting from an airplane for his 80th birthday — he considers teaching upcoming practitioners among his biggest accomplishments.
“My life has been serendipitous,” he said.
Sinenci was born and raised in rural Hana, the second oldest of nine siblings. His childhood consisted of exploring the island, gathering food, fishing and learning from his kupuna.
Saying school wasn’t for him, Sinenci dropped out of high school during his junior year, but a few years later decided to finish his senior year and get his diploma from Hana High School.
The young man left shortly after and served nearly 30 years of military experience, retiring as a U.S. Air Force chief master sergeant.
What pulled him back to Hawaii was watching the Merrie Monarch Festival on television in 1991 while overseas.
“I was overcome with emotion,” he said. “It made me think, ‘I want to go home.’”
The next day he pulled out his retirement papers and left with his wife Esmenia, with “no regrets.”
In 1994, Sinenci was asked to construct a hale at Helemano Elementary School in Wahiawa, but he didn’t know how to build “grass shacks.”
Through Western colonization, many traditional hale and heiau were lost in nature or overrun by modern buildings. It became his mission to raise education of and revitalize the art forms of Hawaiian architecture, as well as remind himself of his “dormant knowledge” from childhood teachings, he said.
With no practitioners he knew of to learn from, Sinenci met with late historian Rudy Mitchell of Waimanalo and reviewed archaeological records.
In 1996, Sinenci completed his first hale project on Maui by creating a kauhale, a small village, in Hana.
“I had it in me, I understood the concept, so I kept building and building and sometimes improving, but stayed true to the culture,” he said.
Hale pili, traditional thatched structures, have evolved over generations, Sinenci said. There are many different styles of hale, ranging from fully roofed homes to open-walled, multipurpose structures, but their common trait is that they are meant “for gathering.”
“The main thing that happens is community engagement,” he said. “I meet people from all walks of life, from all over the world.”
Most notably, he was part of building Holani Hana in the 1990s, a 5-acre cultural park in East Maui that became an important training ground for practitioners and meeting space for gatherings and community events.
Sinenci and a crew of local masons also restored Pi‘ilanihale Heiau located in Kahanu Garden. It’s the largest ancient stone structure in the state and now a national historic landmark, according to the National Tropical Botanical Garden, which operates Kahanu Garden. He and his crew have also built over 300 hale in the area, including around the Hana Cultural Center and Museum, and Mohala Farms.
On Tuesday, the master hale builder scrolled through photos on his phone from a recent Oahu trip. He shared images of hale he’d built on the island that were still standing — one is named after him and one was his first hexagon-shaped hale.
Beyond the usual strong base of stone and posts, inspiration for hale designs come from what natural materials are available nearby, such as fan palms and grass at Kepaniwai.
Whenever Sinenci sees palm trees, he thinks of hale — “wow, look at all those leaves,” he says.