Spreckelsville land for sale - HawaiiLand.biz
T72 Lae Place
Price: $8,800,000 Fee Simple
Beds: 0 Baths: 0.00
Living Area: 0 SF
Land Area: 1.1 Acres
View: Mountain/Ocean
Water Front: OceanFront
Why Spreckelsville?
History and Facts:
Spreckelsville is named for an enterprising young Californian, Claus Spreckels, who arrived in the islands just as the Reciprocity Act of 1875 was being enacted. This Act exempted Hawaiian sugar from American import duties in exchange for American access to Pearl Harbor (among other things).
Spreckels recognized the opportunity this presented and, in 1876, after learning about the sugar business from Henry Baldwin and Samuel T. Alexander, and playing on the friendships he had developed with King Kalakaua and other members of the Hawaiian royalty, he began buying large tracts of land for sugar farming before anyone else knew about them and secured the water rights he needed to irrigate the dry central plains, cutting through “red tape” with help from his influential friends. He started planting sugar cane in 1878.
Spreckels went on to invest more than $4 million in the Hawaiian economy. He developed an irrigation system that brought water to the fertile but dry central plains, turned Kahului into the island’s principal port as his steam ships carried sugar and other products to and from the mainland and moved the focus of Maui’s economy from Lahaina to the Upcountry area. He introduced controlled irrigation, the use of the steam plow and an extensive railroad system as well.
Despite all of this, Spreckels was always considered an “outsider” and deeply resented for his acumen in promoting his own interests and maintaining his empire. By 1898, his era on Maui had ended, and the only reminder of the man is the name of the area where the center of his extensive sugar plantation once stood.
While there is no plantation at Spreckelsville any more, there is money. Expensive beachfront homes and the Maui Country Club line the beach.
