How four Mainland families built a 500-square-foot cabin on Maui

Sunset, April, 1991

Four families share ownership of this vacation cabin on 5 acres near Hana, on the island of Maui. They pooled their resources to buy land and materials, then put up the building with their own hands. The idea for the project dawned when Max Boese, a Seattle attorney, took a hiking vacation on Maui. Near Hana, he spotted a vacant property for sale. Flying home, he daydreamed a "what-if" scenario. It involved teaming up with three other partner-couples, including a brother with expertise in the building trades. He imagined them buying the land, then building a simple structure all the couples could use, at different times, for vacations. The prospective vacationers all expressed enthusiasm, and Mr. Boese acquired the land, setting up a business partnership that took title to the property. Dale Boese, a building contractor, accepted design responsibility. He researched Maui's building codes, then submitted plans as the basis for a permit (this step can be more time-consuming than many owner-builders suspect). The structure, all partners agreed, would be little more than a basic shell, to be expanded elaborated later as they saw fit. The resulting 500-square-foot cabin very simple-a hip-roofed, Post-and beam, single-wall building with a skylight in the roof peak and generous decks on three sides. The interior is one big space wrapped around a central kitchen area with only the bath partitioned off. In a rented airplane hangar near his Oregon home, Dale Boese assembled the kitchen-bath core, cut posts and beams to fit the plan, and prefitted the roofing panels. Then he numbered all the pieces and dismantled everything for shipment. Since the partners could spend only limited time in Hawaii, this advance work was crucial to the project.

Components by ship, crew by plane The components were shipped to Maui in a 40-foot container that also held tools, sacks of concrete (needed for setting the posts, but considerably more expensive of Maui), cooking equipment, furniture, sleeping bags, even a couple of bicycles almost everything needed to complete the project and sustain the crew. A day or two before the ship docked, the partners converged on Maui. They rented a small pick-up truck for transporting themselves. (Too cumbersome for the winding road to Hana, the container was unpacked and its contents transshipped in hired trucks.)

Local contractors built an access road and septic tank, buried utility lines, and were the source for a rented generator and cement mixer.

The first order of business was to erect the superstructure and get the roof up, so workers would have shelter and building materials could be stored under cover. As the roof beams were unloaded, some members of the crew stained them and others put them in place, with Dale Boese acting as foreman. In two weeks, the cabin was essentially completed.

The cost of materials, rentals, shipping, and air fare for all the partners was less than $40,000; no bank loans were involved. The partners reckon their work saved half the cost of the cabin. Each family uses the cabin for two weeks every year; at other times, it's offered as a rental to friends. The partners keep in touch by letter, and nothing is changed without the consent of all. They consider the cabin a recreational property investment, to be expanded at their leisure, and a potential retirement spot. "We wanted to see'what we could do, using a little resourcefulness and proper planning," say the owner-partners. Above all, it's the thoughtful planning that made their venture succeed. li