HPM Building Supply recently opened an Oʻahu Design Center — its first Honolulu location in its 104-year history. It has a total of eight showrooms with others located on Hawaiʻi Island, Kauaʻi and Maui.
The design centers sell home interior products such as cabinets, appliances, flooring and plumbing fixtures — many of which are subject to tariffs.
Sebastian Calaway, the vice president of merchandising and marketing for HPM, said they are trying to stay ahead and work with customers — who are usually contractors and installers — on their project schedules.
"If possible, [we ask customers to] push their orders up to get ahead of the tariffs," Calaway said. "And then for products that we actually, you know, carry in the islands, we started buying early, and we've been working with our suppliers to really mitigate as much of the tariff impact as possible. But it certainly is impacting cabinets, some of the appliances either are manufactured overseas or have components that are subject to tariffs."
Calaway noted that the larger part of HPM's business is building supply.
He said most of the items that go into homes in Hawaiʻi, like lumber, windows and doors, are manufactured in the U.S.
