PUU KA HEA ("HILL OF CALLING")  WAIANAE PLANTATION MANAGER'S RESIDENCE Puu Ka Hea is a three story mansion with verandas on three sides upstairs and down. It is a traditional tropical home, with beautiful views of the mountains, the valleys, and the sea from the lanais (porches). In 1899 Fred Meyer became the third manager of Waianae Sugar Company. He had Puu Ka Hea built in 1910 for him and his family, replacing older structures. Fred Meyer, grandson of the plantation manager recalls, "I don't think very many people in Waianae have seen the inside of this house. When grandfather lived here nobody came into this house except by invitation, not even his grand children. "Grandfather came from Germany. He was a big man, 6 feet 4. Grandmother was from the Big Island. She was Hawaiian, 6 feet tall, a big woman. He gave her anything she wanted. Grandmother was a taro-patch woman; work, work, work. She liked to be in her Hawaiian vegetable garden. "Grandmother hated to wear shoes. She dressed very fine in long dresses with a string so she could hold up one side. She wore her hair in a doughnut on top of her head. Later on, her daughter-in-law thought she ought to wear shoes. Grandfather told them it was none of their business whether she wore shoes or not. He always dressed like a German cavalry officer, and he smoked cigars. You could smell him coming. "There were imported rugs on the floors. When grandfather invited me to visit, I couldn't go into the fancy parlor (dining room) during working hours. There was another parlor with a panola. But only the girls were allowed to play it except on Sunday evening. At the dinner table we had to dress up and eat properly. That's where we ate haole food. But sometimes, grandfather would hardly touch it. Then he would get up and go with grandmother into another little dining room off the kitchen. That's where we could eat Hawaiian food with our fingers. But there were only two chairs at the table-one for grandfather and one for grandmother. Everybody else had to stand up. "My grandmother had four maids, two cooks, and a gardener. Grandfather rode a horse to work but he also owned the second Packard motor car in Hawaii. Grandmother would not ride in it. She always took the hack. They had a Japanese chauffeur, who drove the Packard and the hack and took care of the stables. "On Christmas and New Year's Eve grandfather and grandmother would stand on the upstairs lanai while musicians from all around came to serenade them. Grandfather would drop down envelopes with gold pieces to the musicians. The best group of the evening would come back and be invited into the house to eat and drink and play music for grandmother. They also got more gold pieces." Puu Ka Hea has seven great rooms downstairs, four enormous bedrooms on the second floor, and a living area on the third floor that extends the full length of the house. "This was for grandfather and grandmother only," said Fred Meyer. "Nobody else ever came up here." Puu Ka Hea has been designated a State historic site. Today it is used as a Conference Center and summer camp center for the Hawaii Baptist Convention, which bought the mansion and grounds shortly after the Waianae Plantation, closed in 1946.