The two-story, Victorian-styled Lanihuli Home was an iconic structure of old Laie, local residents expressed. In its 60 years of existence, the home served as mission headquarters, a place for prophets and temple guests to visit, a medical unit for the Army during WWII and lastly, a female dormitory.
Mike Foley, a BYUH alumnus who worked for BYUH and the Polynesian Cultural Center, said, “The Lanihuli house was, perhaps, the first important historical landmark in modern Laie. For over 50 years, it represented not only the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Hawaii, but it also served as a residence and office for a succession of missionaries, mission presidents, a future president of the Church, Laie Hawaii Temple patrons and early students of the Church College of Hawaii.”
According to a local historian, retired BYUH senior librarian and geography professor, Riley Moffat, the Lanihuli Home was built in 1893 by Mission President Mathew Noall. Moffat stated the original building was one story, but a few years after it was built, a second story was added making it a six-bedroom home.
He said, “The mission home was used quite extensively. When President Joseph [F.] Smith would come to visit, everybody would come out here and stay.”
Moffat stated there was a special room in the Lanihuli Home, called the prayer room. “Everybody would come together and sit around and share testimonies and pray together, like a big family prayer every night.”
Semi-annual mission conferences were also held at the Lanihuli Home, Moffat explained, and about 500-1,000 people would stay for three days of meetings.
During WWII, Moffat said the home served as “kind of an officer’s R&R center, which some local families warned their daughters to stay away from.”
Moffat added when the mission headquarters were moved to Honolulu in 1921, members from the outer islands, and those not wanting to drive back to Honolulu after an evening session at the temple, could stay there. A row of wooden apartments was eventually built alongside the home for additional housing, he explained.
Moffat said, “The Lanihuli was the main residence for the young ladies attending the Church College of Hawaii from 1955-1959, who were probably living away from home for the first time in this classy, iconic 60-year-old mansion. It represented the kind of comfortable home away from home they needed as they helped inaugurate what has become a great University amidst a hastily thrown together temporary campus.
“[Lanihuli] carried that aura of sanctuary for the young ladies who were participating in this great new adventure. It was their ‘little city of refuge.’”
Foley, a long-time writer and photographer, wrote on the Lanihuli Home in the BYUH special issue magazine, celebrating 50 years of the school. He said, “I’ve been doing this for about 50 years, so many of the earlier stories, interviews and pictures I captured have become historical over time.”
He also oversaw content on the Laie Hawaii Temple centennial website and began working on a PCC historical website before the COVID-19 pandemic closed it down. He expressed throughout his years, “I’ve sometimes thought our special community could be further blessed with a historical center architecturally patterned after Lanihuli house.”
Moffat said, “[Lanihuli] was Victorian style with a plantation flip flare and it had this turret, like an octagon turret. It had many bedrooms and kitchens and so missionaries that were assigned to the plantation lived there.”
[Lanihuli] carried that aura of sanctuary for the young ladies who were participating in this great new adventure. It was their ‘little city of refuge.’
He further explained, “The Lanihuli Home is one of the iconic structures of old Laie that represents the commitment the Church has made here over the past 155 years.”
The Lanihuli Home was demolished in 1958 due to termite damage, Moffat explained. “The termites destroyed it, and it was just too much to try to maintain. So, they tore it down and built faculty housing there and for the mission president.”
Emily and Stuart Wolthuis are Laie residents who currently live on the land where the Lanihuli Home once was. Emily Wothuis said, “We came here in 2008, and I am incredibly humbled to be able to live here on this land with its history and the people that have lived and prospered in this community. They are sacred. They have followed the prophet’s counsel and have labored in this community to make it what it is today.”
She continued, “When they gave us this house and we saw the monument right here, we read up a lot on it and learned of its history. … It is a great honor and a pleasure to be part of this community, and we feel it.
“We have an open-door policy. Anyone can come and come in and visit. ... We had a lot of gatherings here before COVID, and we just feel like we have to do the same thing that took place almost 100 years ago.”
To read Foley’s article, see page 27 of the special historical edition of the BYUH magazine.