photos: CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARADVERTISER.COM
By Nina Wu
March 6, 2016
Honolulu Star Advertiser
Sitting on the back lanai of the Jean Charlot residence in Kahala, there’s a feeling of serenity the world-renowned artist was sure to have cherished. Birds sing from their perches in the manicured landscape, accompanied by the murmur of Kapakahi Stream and the rustling blades of a hala tree.
Jean Charlot’s art studio, which features cork tile walls for hanging artwork. Charlot died at age 81 on March 20, 1979. He kept drawing up to his last day.
The split-level, ranch-style home was built in 1958 for the Paris-born artist, muralist and scholar, who shared it with his wife, Zohmah, and four children until his death in 1979. Fourteen years ago, Charlot’s children gave it to the University of Hawaii, where he taught during the 1950s and ’60s.
The modest three-bedroom, three-bath home is hidden from view on a quarter-acre lot on the mauka side of Kahala Avenue, next to the Waialae Country Club. Valued at about $1.8 million, it is listed on both the state and national historic registers.
Kiersten Faulkner, executive director of the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation, said the home is significant due to its association with Charlot as well as “in its own right as an exquisitely designed example of midcentury modern architecture.”
It is a comfortable space, with plenty of light and ventilation. When designing the home, Charlot added many personal and artistic touches, collaborating closely with the late architect George “Pete” Wimberly of Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo. Wimberly specialized in resorts, said Faulkner, so this residential project “captures a side of the architect that’s not often seen.”
The two-story living room with open-beam ceilings and a custom built-in sofa features a 12-by-12-foot fresco mural, titled “Tropical Foliage,” that Charlot completed on weekends with the help of family and artist friend Juliette May Fraser, while the home was still under construction. Two large, sliding-glass doors open up to the backyard.
Near the kitchen, a koa dining table extends symmetrically across the windowsill, half indoors, half on the lanai. Overhead hangs a vertical, twisting paper lantern by artist Isamu Noguchi.
Charlot created the ceramic tile friezes depicting petroglyphs that appear above a sliding glass door in his home. They were inspired by Hawaiian stone carvings.
The walls are a combination of redwood, concrete and hapuu fern roots, a novel material Charlot chose to create an organic, textured backdrop for artwork. The floors are a mix of painted concrete and rustic, red brick reminiscent of Mexican courtyards.
CHARLOT was born in 1898 in Paris to a French businessman and artist mother with Aztec roots. He began to draw at the age of 2 and studied informally at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. After serving in the French Army during World War I, he moved to Mexico to work with muralist Diego Rivera. Charlot taught art at various U.S. universities before the University of Hawaii at Manoa invited him to Honolulu in 1949 to complete a mural at Bachman Hall. He stayed on to teach art at UH until 1966.
During his three decades in Hawaii, he was a prolific artist, producing more than 600 easel paintings, 700 prints and numerous works of art in fresco, ceramic and tiles. His murals can be found at the UH-Manoa campus as well as the Hawai‘i Convention Center and United Public Workers Building in Kalihi.
He was also a book illustrator, syndicated cartoonist for Catholic newspapers and contributing art critic for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
The Jean Charlot residence was built in 1958 as a ranch style house in Kahala and was designed by Charlot and architect George “Pete” Wimberly. This is the backyard view of the residence.
Charlot’s children donated the home to UH in 2002, following the wishes of their late mother, Zohmah, who died in 2000. The School of Architecture manages it with oversight by the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation.
“Beautiful composition,” said Daniel Friedman, dean of the School of Architecture, as he led a tour of the home. “Classical mid-modern, very sensitive to indigenous culture and climate. Sensitive use of novel materials.”
Friedman praised the proportions of the two-story living room with the master bedroom on the mezzanine overlooking it and the “single, continuous living area” with its bank of windows and open doors that bring the outdoors in.
Charlot’s artwork is integrated into the home in many places.
He made the blue ceramic tile for the home’s street address, which is installed on the curved wall out front, as well as a ceramic tile mural, “Sacred Heart of Jesus,” near the front door.
The kitchen is decorated with a series of whimsical, ceramic tiles in a frieze depicting petroglyphs. Charlot, who was intensely interested in the language and culture of Hawaii, created them after an extensive study of the Hawaiian stone carvings. The petroglyph designs are repeated on beams above the lanai’s sliding glass doors.
Upstairs, Charlot’s art studio is a curved room with cork board walls. It hosts a drafting desk and file cabinet, and looks out on the vista of Waialae Country Club’s golf course. It was his creative space, where he likely produced many of his cartoons and sketches, according to Bronwen Solyom, curator of the Jean Charlot Collection.
The Jean Charlot residence was built in 1958 as a ranch style house in Kahala and was designed by Charlot and architect George James “Pete” Wimberly. Pictured is the dining room area.
The collection, located on the fifth floor of UH’s Hamilton Library, is a treasure trove of information on Charlot. It houses the original sketches he made for the home as well as his extensive book collection, part of his art collection and artwork.
While the home is in livable condition, the School of Architecture is drawing up a schedule of repairs of concrete cracking and damage from carpenter bees that Friedman said he plans to present to the UH administration by the end of the year. The annual cost of upkeep for the property was not immediately available from UH officials.
“We want to stem any further deterioration aside from normal wear and tear,” he said.
The property, which is not open to the public, currently serves as a residence for a visiting architecture professor from Tongji University in Shanghai as part of a one-year exchange program. In the long term, Friedman hopes to offer more academic enrichment programs there, including seminars.
Under terms of the preservation easement agreement, the home may be used as a residence or site for special events as long as it relates to the arts and humanities, but not for commercial purposes.
“We need to look at ways to fund its continued conservation to honor the terms of the gift agreement.” said Friedman, “and I look forward to it because it’s a worthy project.”
In its heyday, the home was a vibrant gathering place for the family, according to Solyom, as well as a revolving art gallery for works the Charlots collected.
The living room area featuring a mural by Charlot above the sliding glass doors.
The couple entertained often and hosted dozens of friends throughout the year, as recorded in guest books archived in the Charlot Collection. They included prominent artists and scholars from around the world who left their own sketches and signatures in the books.
Charlot finished his last mural, “Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well” at Maryknoll Elementary School in September 1978 from a wheelchair. He died at the age of 81 in a downstairs bedroom in his Kahala home on March 20, 1979. He kept drawing up to his last day, his last works left on the art table.
See Charlot’s Collection
The Jean Charlot Collection is housed in the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Hamilton Library, room 502. Open to visitors from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesdays and 1 to 5 p.m. Thursdays or by appointment. Call 956-2849 or go to library.manoa.hawaii.edu/departments/charlotcoll/charlot.php
Artist Jean and Zohma Charlot seated at the koa dining table at their home in Kahala. Photo taken in 1962. Courtesy Jean Charlot Collection/Photo credit: Francis Haar.