Historic Preservation > Historic Residential Properties
Hawaii's Historic Homes Now Online
Historic Hawai‘i Foundation has digitized and published an online resource listing historic homes enrolled in the Honolulu historic property tax exemption program.
The searchable list of historic residences will serve as a research tool and resource for many stakeholders, including property owners, government agencies, heritage visitors, and those who love Hawaii’s historic places.
The property list cross-references each property by address, historic name, tax map key number, and historic register file number. Until HHF’s project was undertaken, these various means of searching for the historic information had not previously been correlated by either the State Historic Preservation Division or the City & County of Honolulu.
In addition to providing the searchable list, the website also provides a map of each property’s location, a photograph of the historic home, an abstract of its historic significance, and a link to a digital version of the nomination form. Before this effort, only hard copies of the nomination, held in the State’s files in Kapolei, were available to the public.
The project began with some 250 historic homes on O‘ahu that receive the City’s property tax exemption. Future endeavors will build on the list by adding pages for historic properties in the other counties, as well as non-residential historic buildings and sites, and those that are designated on the state register but not receiving the tax break.
The new historic homes online resource provides another way both to preserve Hawaii’s architectural heritage, and also to help ensure the stories about significant historic properties and cultural resources will be shared with the broadest audience by making the information is available to all who have an interest in Hawaii’s history.
