Page 160 - WDT Magazine Egypt

Queen Emma was the wife of King Kamehameha
Visitors stroll through the “Three Pools
Room” at Allerton Garden, left, where
the pools’ surface mirrors a towering
tree. A pair of frogs take a break be-
tween catching flies, right, at an Aller-
ton koi pond.
160 WDT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018
IV, but after the death of the king and their only child,
and her unsuccessful bid to become Hawaii’s ruling
monarch, Emma retired to the Lawa‘i Valley, where
she lived in a traditional Hawaiian house overlook-
ing the deep gorge. It was Emma who started the
valley on its path to becoming a botanical treasure
trove, as she planted rose apples, Alexandrian laurel,
mangoes, bamboo, pandanus, ferns, bougainvillea –
a rich horticultural array – on the cliffs. Some of her
plants survive to this day.
Starting in 1876 Emma leased part of the Lawa‘i
valley to Duncan McBryde, which initiated a period
of commercial farming. After the queen’s death in
1885, the McBrydes acquired the valley outright and
employed laborers to work the land. However, one
of the McBryde sons, Alexander, moved a cottage
belonging to Queen Emma from the upper valley
nearer the beach, where he lived and continued
Emma’s practice of floral munificence by planting
palms, gingers, plumerias, and ferns.
At the height of its production the McBryde
plantation had its own railroad that carried laborers
and sugar cane to and fro, as the crop was in high
demand.
But gradually the boom times ended and Alex-
ander died in 1935. Tenant farmers grew rice and
taro on the banks of Lawa‘i Stream, in what is now
Allerton Garden.
In 1937 Robert and John arrived in Hawaii during
one of their global treks and were immediately smit-
ten by Lawa‘i Valley’s natural beauty.
The two men had met in Chicago in 1922 long
after Robert, heir to a massive fortune, had given up
aspirations of being an artist, devoting his time to
philanthropy, patronage and art collecting. Robert
was 26 years older than John, who was an orphan
and architecture student when they met. Robert
owned a lush mansion and grounds near Monticello,
Illinois, which he filled with the artworks and plants
that he collected on his world travels. John designed
some garden spaces on those grounds, and Robert
adopted John, first in spirit and later legally, as his
son and heir.