Courtney Brown

This Saturday, September 27, 2008, the Kapalua Resort presents Play Golf America Day. The Kapalua Golf Academy will feature instructional clinics and presentations by world famous master instructors, Jim Flick and Mike Adams. More than 30 PGA pros will take a break from the 2008 Aloha PGA Teaching and Coaching Summit to give free lessons to the public. TaylorMade, Titleist, Cobra, Ping and Nike will all have demo presentations as well. Register online at www.playgolfamerica.com or call the Kapalua Golf Academy at 808-665-5454.

For more information on properties available in the Kapalua Resort, including condominiums, homes and homesites, contact your Kapalua Resort Specialist, Courtney Brown, R(S) Kapalua Realty.

The Kapalua Resort is lucky to have Silla Kaina here to greet visitors and locals alike, teaching them a little about life in Hawaii. Silla hosts a series of cultural programs here in the resort that include lei making, hula lessons, lau hala, and history of the area and the plantation. She teaches on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and visitors come year after year, looking for Silla.

Sometimes, when she's done, we have a few minutes to talk story. Today, we were talking about the change in the weather, and how it feels like summer has just ended (notably it's about five degrees cooler--that's our change of season!). In summer, you can smell the arrival of the season--to me, it's a mixture of salt water and plumeria. Silla told me that, unlike the mainland, which typically has four seasons, the Hawaiian culture recognized two seasons. The cooler, wetter season called Ho'oilo and the hotter, drier season called Kau. Both seasons last about six months, and were marked by the constellations in the eastern sky at sunset. Growing up here, I hadn't heard about the two seasons, and I wanted to share this with you.

Today was my last West Maui Caravan serving as West Maui Regional Director for our Realtor's Association of Maui. During this past year, I have seen a tremendous transformation in this weekly event and in my fellow Realtors. As we all know, these have been trying economic times, and the real estate market has been affected. Our weekly caravans have changed from being a forum where we preview listings and talk about market conditions, to a forum where we still do those things, but we help the community at the same time.

Let me explain how: Each year, the President of RAM selects a charitable cause for our organization to support. The Wishing Well began with Sarah Sorenson and her vision to unite Maui public school students with the resources they need to better their education. Several realtors volunteered to become school coordinators and began to learn about the needs, some individual and some collective, of the Maui community's schools. Coordinators range from parents to concerned community members, and they have spent many volunteer hours making contact with the schools and teachers, and have even gone so far to join the PTSA. As West Maui is a fairly small geographic community, the school coordinators Toni Johnson, Siu Whitehead, Bev Will, Barb Potts, Gayle Shufeldt, Pearl Gore, and Judy Gibbs formed the West Maui Wishing Well Committee, and were meeting weekly to discuss their efforts and put together Wishlists for their schools.

I was new to the RAM board, and my role was to act as conduit between the board and members of the West Maui real estate community, by relaying information between our weekly caravan meetings and the RAM board meetings. During one of these meetings, it was brought up that many school children do not have enough money to purchase lunch. While it is true that students technically don't go without lunch, the schools make up the deficit. This often results in less money for much needed educational programs. It was brought up that we often serve food as an enticement at our weekly caravans, and that this money could be spent to better serve the community by funding lunches--just $1/day is needed to provide lunch for a student.

At the next caravan, I brought the growing lunch fund deficit that West Maui Public Schools face to the attention of my fellow agents. The response of the members was immediate, with several agents pledging that day a dollar for each agent that stopped by to view their listing. These acts of generosity has continued at our weekly caravan ever since.

A group of agents got together to host a Kahana Ridge caravan, then a Summit Estates caravan, advertising in the local paper that a dollar would be donated for anyone that came to see the listing to the lunch fund. The response from the community was great, and several people indicated that they made a point of seeing these homes because of the Wishing Well donation.

Within weeks, we had raised enough money to cover the lunch fund deficit for that calendar year, and estimated deficit for the 2008-2009 fund for Princess Nahi'ena'ena Elementary School, King Kamehameha III Elementary School, and Lahaina Intermediate.

The West Maui Wishing Well Committee then set about trying to set very clear goals to which we would dedicate the caravans. As we were able to help the elementary and intermediate school, we shifted our focus to Lahainaluna High School. We were able to raise over $3000 from Caravans and community volunteer work projects for their Project Graduation 2008 event. Several West Maui realtors volunteered the night of the Project Graduation, assisting parents and organizers in providing a safe, alcohol-free environment to celebrate the graduation night. We were honored to have parents and organizers come in to the caravan to tell the realtors about the graduation celebration and to thank those members of the real estate community who volunteered their time. Realtor Volunteers expressed how much fun it was to interact with the graduates and to get to know members of the community.

We then focused on a school supply drive (which included Molokai and Lanai) and raising funds for books for the new school year, as many students don't have their own textbooks. And the biggest project of all: community work events to assist students in refreshing the dorms at Lahainaluna High School. We are hoping to find contractors to volunteer to fix faulty plumbing and electrical. Rooms need to be painted and furnishings updated. I believe the Lahainaluna boarding program is the only one of it's kind in the nation, with boarders from around the state and the Pacific. For the past two weeks, Realtors and community members have turned out to paint the dorm rooms along with students, and several remarked at our caravan this morning that it was extremely rewarding.

Finally, RAM is working on a web site which we hope will become a vehicle for schools to post their needs and for the public to find out about it. We hope to launch an ad campaign for the web site, encouraging members of the community to log on to find out what donations are needed and what community work events are planned.

Since we began collecting at the caravans just a few months ago, we have raised over $7500 dollars for the Maui Public Schools with approximately 75 agents participating to date, and more volunteering each week. I am continually awed that in face of challenging economic times, so many realtors have donated their time and resources to better the environment for Maui public school students. I am feel fortunate to work with my fellow West Maui Realtors and am so proud of what they've accomplished with our weekly caravans.

There is so much to do for the communities we call home. As someone who was born here on Maui, and attended public school, I know first-hand that there are shortages. However, I am grateful that I had access to the education that I did, and see this as a wonderful opportunity to give back. The Wishing Well for Maui Students allows all of us to contribute to the future success of our community by fostering a better educational environment for our students.

Portions of this blog appeared originally in an article I wrote for the HawaiiRealtor Journal, in September, 2008.

Maui's 23,000 acre Kapalua Resort is currently home to seven condominium communities and four residential communities. While they all share in the resort's extensive amenities, each community has it's own unique character and charm.

Today I'd like to focus the spotlight on the Kapalua Bay Villas, which are one of Maui's lovieliest oceanfront communities. These low rise condominium residences are nestled on 16.5 oceanfront acres, perched on the rocky cliffs above the white sand beach of Oneloa Bay. Each of the 27 buildings is home to one and two bedroom floorplans, many with spectacular ocean and island views. There are a variety of options to suit your needs: from one and two bedroom townhome style floorplans to single level living. Residences range from approximately 1200 to 2000 sq. ft. (including outdoor lanai space). Amenities include three private swimming pools, tennis courts, and covered recreation/barbecue facilities.

The Bay Villas were originally built in 1977, and since that time, we have seen many modifications to the buildings and floorplans (with board, KapaluaResort Association, and county approvals required). With the market boom over the past few years, many new owners have completely renovated their Bay Villas. In 2007, the Kapalua Villas, the onsite resort rental management program, launched the Kapalua Gold Collection. These premier accommodations are luxuriously appointed according to the program's elegant design standard.

The Kapalua Bay Villas is comprised of 141 condominiums. Today there are 27 active Kapalua Bay Villa listings, ranging from $899,000 to $2,695,000. The average list price per sq. ft. is $1,434 and the average listing has been on the market for 265 days. Since January, 2008 there have been five sales. The average sale price was $1,435,000, or $1,275 per sq. ft., and the average listing spent 275 days on the market.

In reading the comments to my previous blog entries, there was a request for more photos. Enjoy!

This photo was taken on one of our typical Maui days, from the lanai of an oceanfront Bay Villa, looking toward the Ironwoods. Oneloa Bay is a wonderful spot for kite surfing, and they were out en masse the day I took this photo.

This photo taken from Kapalua Bay Villa 34B3. I loved how it feels like you are the captain of a ship, from the comfort of your living room.

Imagine, lounging on the Lanai of Kapalua Bay Villa 23B1 and enjoying this view every day.

Some information for this post was taken from the RAM's MLS system on 9/23/08 and is believed to be accurate, but should not be relied upon without independent verification.

The Kapalua Resort will host the inaugural Kapalua LPGA Classicthis October 13-19th, at the KapaluaBay Course. We are excited to have this addition to our annual Kapalua events, which include the Mercedes-Benz Championship, played each January at the Kapalua Plantation Course and the Kapalua Wine and Food Festival held each summer.

Watch the Kapalua Resort's host professional, Morgan Pressel, vie against other golf phenoms for the $1.5 million purse.

Those fortunate enough to be staying at the condominiums and homes bordering the event Ridge Villas, the Golf Villas, the Ironwoods, Pineapple Hill and Pineapple Hill Estates will have front row seats for what is sure to be an exciting week of golf.

Order your tickets now, or if you are interested, volunteer. The Kapalua Resort is seeking volunteers to participate as on-course marshalls, walking scorers, standard bearers and more. This is a great way for a fan to experience the event!

This is a full-field televised event, so if you won't be on Maui, you don't have to miss the fun.