Big Island Elegance

JUST NORTH OF KONA, ON THE DRY, LEEWARD SIDE OF THE BIG ISLAND OF HAWAII, one can drive for miles on the main highway that cuts through craggy lava fields and never see a single person. It is this lonely and seemingly uninhabitable landscape, created by the volcanoes that rise in the distance, that sets the scene for a new house architect Shay Zak and designer Barbara Barry designed for a family in the seaside Kukio enclave. “It was important that the materials did not fight the black and gray lava fields, but offer a continuation of the land through the house, emphasizing an indoor-outdoor connection,” Zak says. Barry pulled the colors of the lava and other natural elements further into the interiors. “I fell in love with the bedrock of lava on which the house was built, the undulating mounds of honed brown-black... Read More