The Waiale'e Home for Wayward Boys

On the Kamehameha Highway between Kahuku and Sunset Beach stands a beautiful ruin on the mauka (mountain) side of the highway. An article in Honolulu Weekly, August 2012 written by Donovan Kuhio Colleps, addresses this "most curious piece of architecture" and its history.

http://abandonedplaces.livejournal.com/2603344.html

The Waiale'e Home for Wayward Boys was opened in 1903 and was a new version of Hawaii's first reform school begun in the 1860s. It remained operative for about 50 years and was meant to be a self-sustaining enterprise. "The boys, whose ages ranged from seven to 25, cultivated their own taro, bananas, sweet potato and sugarcane and raised cattle and pigs for milk and meat, and managed the school’s farm, repair shop, engine room, generators, water power, carpenter shop, tailor shop [and] ice house,” according to the Honolulu Advertiser in 1928. 

"An average of 180 boys are reported to have lived at the school at any given time; they even assembled a music band and performed in many parades in Honolulu. The practice hall remains today, covered in graffiti across the street." (Colleps) Offenses included truancy, vagrancy and homeless, disobedience to parents, common nuisance, tresspassing, assault, larceny, housebreaking and burglary.

There is a dark side to the history, however, as corporal punishment was enforced, "Oregon boots, shackles, leg irons, cat-o-nine tails, straps soaked in vinegar and salt, terrific lashings and beatings," (Colleps). Stories were told of "dark cells" or solitary confinement in cells under the ground. Sometime in the 1920s, a new leader of the school largely purged the school of what he called "...vestiges of the Dark Ages."

The school apparently didn't succeed in reforming many young men, according to a September 3, 1953 editorial in the Honolulu Record, which notes: "70 percent of the Oahu Prison inmates come from Waiale'e Training School for Boys, which is supposedly a correction and rehabilitation home."

In the 1940s, the school closed and in 1953,  the Crawford family purchased the property and turned some of its buildings into a 55 room convalescent center for seniors. I believe the old ruins are now owned by the state of Hawaii, but the buildings used for the convalescent center stand empty. Homefacts.com lists the property at this address at $2.3 million and describes it a a multi-bedroom unit with 11 bathrooms and 22,000 square feet of living space 

The following links have some great pictures--both current and historical--of this property:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/fightingforward/sets/72157625954640975/

http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/hi/waialee.html