Tom Liu stands on his property in Kula, motioning towards the gulch behind what used to be his home.
“What happened is, it [was] burning up there. But I can't see [it] — I can smell — but somebody called me, said, 'Sandalwood!' because they were burning down behind Sandalwood [Kula Sandalwoods Café and Inn]. So I thought, 'Oh my God. You know that's little ways yet, and I'm safe.'”
That was the day Liu lost everything.
“Was 3:30, 4 o'clock, and I was just going to lay down. And police didn't drive in, they parked the car on the road, ran down here, knocked on the door, saying, 'You better get out!'”
Meanwhile, his daughter, who also lived on the property, was working in Wailea. She drove home immediately after getting a call that Kula was burning. Liu jumped in her car and they went to a neighbor’s house a couple miles away — where they watched the fire.
“All I took with me was my wallet and my iPhone. I just grabbed it, because in my mind, it's like, 'I'll be back in couple hours,' you know?”
Another neighbor called Liu that evening.
“He says, 'Tom, I got bad news for you.' I said, 'What?' He says, 'Your house is burning.'”
For the first month, Liu stayed with friends and at the Kula Lodge, which offered rooms for fire survivors in the area. Like many others, he relied on the Kula Hub, a community volunteer effort that was activated to help their neighbors.
“Kula Hub was my savior because they started right away,” he said. “The volunteers, they got all my clothes, my underwear, my socks, my slippers.”
They also brought meals to him and others living without kitchens.
Liu was the first in his area to get his property cleared of debris in November. He was also the first in Kula to get his building permit to begin reconstruction.
Now, he sits next to the framing of a new cottage and points to photos of ash piles that were all that remained of his garage almost a year ago. The area is being leveled for the next stage of building.
Liu is 83 years old and said people keep asking him why he’s rebuilding.
It’s his neighbors and the kind volunteers of Kula Hub that made his decision easy, he explained.
“The outpouring of love just completely touched my heart. So I said, ‘I'm not leaving, I'm just going to rebuild.’”
Liu was born in Shanghai and traveled around the world for work before he and his wife built their home in Kula about 20 years ago.
“To me, the house is my wife. I said, ‘You do anything you want. You can pick any color, you know, build it the way you want it.’”
Now, she’s not here to help rebuild. She died over a decade ago.
“What scares me now is, 'Yeah, go ahead and build a house,' but when I move into my finished home, I got nothing,” he said. “I got to buy every piece of furniture. I got to buy chopsticks, forks, cups, you know, I've never done that before."
"But now I gotta go in there, buy all these. I just talk to my wife, I said, ‘Where are you? I need help,’” he said.
He’s glad one of his daughters is close by to assist.
“That's what most people don't think about: ‘Oh, you gonna build a house!’ It’s empty!”
Like so many, the fire took valuables from Liu that can never be replaced.
“The thing that you miss the most? It's all the things that my parents left me, all the photos that my wife and I [took when we] travel.”
His wife’s teapot collection, Chinese brush art his mother painted and signed to him, the empress dowager’s silver chopsticks, and 12th-century Japanese swords he found mangled after the fire were all gone.
The rebuild is also coming at a price.
“It's not been easy, lots of red tape. And the cost — I'm speaking to everybody who needs to rebuild — the cost is going up. I just never thought [it’s] going to cost this much to rebuild.”
He’s grateful to his contractor, who is dedicated to completing his home, Liu said.
Liu is anxious to move in because his insurance is only covering one year of rental costs following the fire.
He is hoping his cottage will be finished by the end of the year, followed by the main house.
“This is where I am. This is where I want to be. I'm just going to take my time, whatever time it takes to rebuild my life,” he said. “It's been difficult, but it's also rewarding.”
