A particular tree in Lahaina, the beloved banyan, has become a symbol of hope and recovery after suffering severe damage in the 2023 wildfires.
The Conversation spoke to Theo Morrison from the Lahaina Restoration Foundation, the group tasked with rebuilding historic Lahaina and the buildings around Banyan Court Park.
The park isn't open to the public just yet — there are still some infrastructure issues to address. It may open later this year, but you might have gotten a glimpse of the tree and the new and restored benches underneath.
Morrison also said she expects the master plan for rebuilding eight historic buildings to be released later this month.
Interview highlights
On restoring and adding benches under the banyan tree
THEO MORRISON: There were just benches under the banyan tree, and then we started, maybe eight years ago, creating new benches because we needed more benches. Let's put it that way. A lot of people — sitting under the banyan tree is like 10 degrees cooler than sitting anywhere else in Lahaina. So the benches are very popular. So we created more benches, but we didn't have the money for them, so we sponsored the benches, so people are able to buy a bench for $5,000 with a plaque on it with their name and a couple other little lines that can say other things. And then the key, we found out the hard way, was we made them out of ipe wood, which is a very, very dense wood, and it actually survived the fire. So all the benches that were made out of ipe wood that were in the park survived. And the other benches, the really older, really nice benches, but they were made out of teak, they did not survive. … There's a total of 29 benches under the banyan tree now, and we're done with the project, because we don't want it to look like a bus stop, it's a park. So we have enough benches under the banyan tree. We'll just keep adding like a finish to them, especially the ones, some of them now are in the sun because the tree had to be cut back. … After the fire, the banyan tree was a really big deal. A lot of people have really good memories under the banyan tree. That's what it comes down to. So they wanted to be able to have a piece of that.
On the plan for restoring historic buildings
MORRISON: We are responsible for eight historic buildings in Lahaina, five of which we own, three of which belong to the county, but they're all our responsibility. So this master plan is a plan for how to restore them so they will look the same from the outside. A few of them have some changes. The non-public buildings have some changes to the inside, but the public buildings will all be the same inside, like the Baldwin Home will always be the same inside. We lost all the artifacts, so we'll have to get additional artifacts donated. And then the Old Lahaina Courthouse will be the same layout, the Old Lahaina Prison and Hale Aloha, those will all be the same layout that they were before. … Yes, we have eight historic buildings, but there's a lot more in Lahaina. We have to focus on what we can do and what we are responsible for. So that's why we are focusing just on those eight buildings, some of which are big, like the Old Lahaina Courthouse, that is a big building, two stories, coral block building, that's a really big building. And then the Seamen's Hospital is also two stories. The Baldwin Home is two stories. Those are big buildings. So that's what we wanted, that's what we are doing, as well as the parks and open spaces in Lahaina, focusing on those.
On incorporating a film about Lahaina's history into rebuilding
MORRISON: Well, three years before the fire, we began work on a short animated film to tell a story of Mokuʻula, because we all know that Mokuʻula, the site, you can't really see anything. It's just like an empty lot. So we felt it was really important to tell the story. So we created this film with a tremendous amount of local input. We went around to a lot of the Hawaiians in the area, people who'd worked on, with the friends of Mokuʻula, people who had a really good knowledge. And then we worked with our director, the same person who created the whale film at the Maui Ocean Center. So we had a really good crew. It took a long time, and then the plan was to show that film in the Old Lahaina Courthouse on a regular basis. It's only 10 minutes. And then it would also include an interpretive part of it, where we would have a docent explaining the whole story and the importance of Mokuʻula, but we lost the courthouse, so we have been showing it free once a month on the second Friday of every month, except for August. … And we've had 100 people every time, which is really great, because that means we're getting that story of that really important place out there to the public. And then when we restore the buildings, one of the buildings we’ll be restoring is called the Kindergarten Building. It was the former place for Village Gallery, which was located behind the Baldwin Home in the parking lot. And we are going to turn that into a small theater and show the film there on a regular basis.
On working in Lahaina
MORRISON: Right after the fire, nobody was allowed to go into Lahaina; it was just totally restricted, shut down, nobody could go in. And then it was months before we were able to actually go in. And one of the first times I went in, I noticed the parks are just so overgrown and full of weeds and all this stuff. I thought, we can do this. We can't fix our building right now, but we can clean up these parks. … So it's been a tremendous amount of work. We've been doing it for at least, I don't know, eight, nine months now. We're just about finished with all the repair of the irrigation, all of which melted, and the removal of all that stuff that flew into the parks, and, yeah, it makes a world of difference. All of a sudden, I told my guys, I said, "People need to understand we care when they come through." Like at that point in time, a lot of the big FEMA guys and all this stuff they were driving through to look at the disaster or whatever. And I go, "Let's show them that we care." And so that was the impetus to get that whole thing cleaned up. And then people started buying benches. So we restored all the benches, well, the ones that didn't burn in the park, and added more benches.
This story aired on The Conversation on Aug. 4, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this interview for the web.
