Vladimir Ossipoff's Pālehua Cabin

This video was produced by Docomomo_US Hawaii as part of the 2021 Annual Membership Meeting, and documents the Pālehua cabins designed by Vladimir Ossipoff.

Thank you to Valerie Ossipoff, Jane Goodsill, and Gary Gill for their interviews. It was directed by Graham Hart with cinematography by Kaoru Lovett, Ronald Ribao, and Eleni Avendano. Archival video courtesy of the Liljestrand Foundation. Archival photographs courtesy of the Goodsill Family and the Liljestrand Foundation. Archival drawings courtesy of the Ossipoff & Snyder Architects Collection at the University of Hawaii Hamilton Library. It was shot on location in Pālehua, West O'ahu, with help from Liza Ryan Gill.

About Vladimir Ossipoff’s Pālehua Cabins
Vladimir Ossipoff (1907-1998) is regarded as the master of Mid-Century Modern architecture in Hawai‘i. Born in Russia, raised in Japan, and schooled in California, Ossipoff’s work in Hawai‘i from the 1930s onward embodies both the multicultural makeup of the islands and his own trans-Pacific upbringing. Combining Japanese spatial typologies and craft, with modernist principles and technologies, his work gives form to an island-inspired modernism, with informal and dignified structures designed in harmony with the environment.

Ossipoff’s career and best-known projects, including Honolulu’s IBM Building, the Liljestrand House, and Thurston Memorial Chapel at Punahou School, have been widely studied and discussed, most notably in the 2007 exhibition (and subsequent book), Hawaiian Modern: The Architecture of Vladimir Ossipoff. But until recently, Ossipoff’s Pālehua cabin and guest cottage, built between 1949 and 1960, have remained relatively unknown, absent from Hawai‘i’s architectural discourse and inaccessible to the public.

Originally designed as a weekend retreat for his family, the simple wood cabin and guest cottage were built on a rugged parcel in the Wai‘anae Mountains, which Ossipoff leased from the James Campbell Estate in 1949. Located several hours from their home on the windward side of Oahu, the first cabin was built within a few months with only the help of a few men and Ossipoff’s daughters. The simple, gable-roofed structure and exposed post-and-beam construction form essentially a two-room house, with a small kitchen and bathroom. Breaking the grid of the structure, Ossipoff extruded moments for reflection and adaptation. The east side of the cabin shields itself from the access road while the west side opens up to an expansive view of Nānākuli Valley.

Having spent much of the first two decades of his life in Japan, and fluent in Japanese, Ossipoff’s early conception of what constituted a “home” was undoubtedly influenced by Japanese design, and he once remarked that the Japanese house, with its thin walls and open connection to the environment, was even better suited to Hawai‘i than its native Japan. These ideas are made explicit at Pālehua. Typical Japanese elements are found throughout the cabin, from shoji, fusuma, and amado to spatial elements like the engawa, genkan, and a six-tatami room. When the cabin became too small for the Ossipoffs and their invited guests, particularly the Goodsill family, a second one-room guest cottage was built just up the ridgeline.

Led by the Gill family, a yearslong restoration process was undertaken to preserve and restore the structures and for the first time open them to the public. The project was a community undertaking, bringing together a coterie of local architects, designers, woodworkers, and historic preservationists, all of whom recognized the cabins’ unique historic and architectural significance and donated their labor and expertise.

The restored cabin and guest cottage will open to the public in 2021, as a venue and overnight rental, with proceeds funding the Gill family’s ongoing forest restoration work and environmental education. Importantly, the project also contributes to the public’s understanding and appreciation for Ossipoff and Hawai‘i’s Mid-Century Modernism. These humble timber structures are the link between Ossipoff’s better-known works and his personal design values. They represent how Ossipoff saw architecture. Not built for awards or high-end clients, the cabins represent a living sketchbook and a glimpse into Ossipoff's mind.