A close friend I shared a home with during my studies at the University of Hawai’i on Oahu built George Harrison’s house on Maui.
The home is located a few miles north of Hana on Maui’s southeast corner, on a bluff overlooking the Pacific at Nihiku, a small village once known for its rubber plantation. I was at the house site when the home was nearing completion, and Harrison paid a
visit, driving down from Lahaina.
Coincidentally, it was his birthday, and his wife held a casual party for him, serving ice cream and cake on paper plates.
Harrison and his wife were gracious people, and doted over their young son. I was more impressed that day with their kindness and hospitality than the fact I was meeting one of the Beatles.
This was just a few years after John Lennon had been shot to death by a crazy from Kailua on Oahu, and Harrison had a body guard with him on the trip to Maui. The highlight of the day, for me, was when we were watching whales from the deck of his home and
he made up joke about a whale windsurfing and told it in the accent the Beatles made world-famous.
Harrison later released an album, titled “Gone Troppo,” that featured a stylized image of a concrete mixer from his homesite on the back cover. Among the album’s tracks was “Here Comes the Moon,” a tune that was a play on his famous Abbey Road song “Here Comes the Sun,” and a piece he might have been inspired to write watching a full Hawaiian moon rise from his home on the Hana coastline.
Harrison’s Hawai’i days are no more. After a battle with cancer, he died Thursday at the age of 58 in Los Angeles. His wife, Olivia, and son Dhani, 24, were with him.
New media manager Chris Cook can be reached at 245-3681 and ccook@pulitzer.net
