 in architecture, broadcasting live from me here near Munich, to you to Soto back in Honolulu, Hawaii, and we're having with us Larry Stricker from his gut cell vineyard in Napa Vela, California. Welcome back, Larry. The question we're posing is that maybe the most promising potential for post-pandemic practices might actually to be found in the progressive path. We just put this out here as a question or as a menu fan. Can we have the first slide up to briefly recap where we had left in the volume one, where you, Soto and Larry had shared interesting experiences from your project, Larry, which is the Mount Elani Bay Resort, which was built by, designed by you as a partner in the firm of Killingsworth, Stricker and Lindgren Wilson and Associates. And I found that picture that you said you had never seen before, which is in the middle at the bottom, which is one of your exquisite wine bottles in front of an oak barrel, which of course you're using, to have the wine age in gray. And the material wood has puzzled us or caught our attention when you, Larry, were also showing us your photo documentation of when you were attending your project the last time around the reopening after a year or longer renovation for the cost of $200 million. And can we get the second, the next slide up, please, and explain to us a little bit more what you saw when you were there and what you see here on the picture. For the most part, the bones and the skeleton of the structure are the same, but in several areas with the introduction of wood, it has become a little heavy-handed. We'll see when we look at the original stairs, how they were handled. There's a lot more stairs, how there's to be very monumental. And the functioning of the space has changed a little bit. I don't know that as we move to further slides that showed the original, we can explain a little better. But I've definitely lost a lot of the lightness of the original stairway structure. Yeah, and we threw in a quote of the show we did with your friend and business partner, Ron Lindgren, when we were talking about the Marriott Palm Desert Hotel that you guys did, where a similar thing had happened to that, that beautiful, lush, tropical courtyard was erased and replaced with a rather generic, corporate hotel interior. Unfortunately, luckily, they did it with more style in your case. So from the aesthetics, they state within a decent language. But again, they might not have really understood the essence and the philosophy of your design strategy, which we will see while we go to the next slide. And I leave it up to the soda to explain what we see. Well, I would see that. Yeah, I think that we don't want to come across as being anti-wood in general as we go through this discussion because the presence of wood in the remodeled hotel is very prominent. And I know Martin, you're a big fan of the use of wood in construction. And there are a lot of reasons that wood is very good and very nice. It's a renewable resource. There's a lot of very nice qualities that people enjoy. You can do a lot of very interesting things with wood when you're constructing things. So we see here some evidence of the use of wood and the way that wood is merchandised and sold and promoted for architecture. So it's not a bad thing, but in this case, we're not 100% on board with what was done to it and with it in this particular. These are samples of the proof of evidence of us being woodpeckers, me and my family firm. And that being said, let's go to the next slide and let's talk a little bit about that. So what do we see and what do we think about it guys? Let's open this up for discussion. Well, I think the thing that you just said when we were rehearsing a few minutes ago that's really interesting is, having seen the newly woodenized main stairway of the Monolani Atrium, when you look at these two pictures of the guest rooms, which one of them is the original appearance and which one of them is the new remodeled appearance? And it may be deceptive because you'd think that, oh, they've just started this massive use of wood. It must be the picture on the bottom with the wooden sliding shutter doors. But in fact, that's not the case. And Larry can tell us, I think. Definitely the view on top is the new room. And I think I mentioned the wear and tear on the wood louvers to restore them to their original state or to a workable state, what may have been cost prohibitive. But there were also, I think, the lower photo doesn't show. But the seating area nearest the Monolani was also had a cold wood floor as did the entry. So the wood team could have been carried throughout the guest room, but it may have, again, been a cost factor. Yeah. And you were saying that originally these wooden doors would have been oiled rather than painted or to be another maintenance issue that they didn't want to have to deal with. And based on the consultancy of our exotic escapism experts, Zana, I want to point out these little quotes on the right side, which are from Trip Advisor or Yale or something like that. They're from a little while ago before the renovation. The middle one says, data, dark rooms. And so I think I'm afraid, we're afraid that also is sort of aspect of novelty that seems to be natural in a tragic way to the hotel industry, that they think they have to do what they think their visitor is, their tourist ones. But the question is, you know, what was first, the chicken or the egg? And so, again, maybe we'll leave it with that and move on to the next, and Larry, explain to us what we see. We're coming in at the entrance just from the Port Coucher. So this is, we have the blue tile and the fist ponds on either side of the entry, separated as a protective element, the wood seats or benches that also serve as a waiting area. And then you'll see the continuity of the blue tile and the water on either side of the entry carried through into the lobby and then down to the lower level. And I wanted to just interject here that even though the Montelani Hotel is on a tropical island in the Hawaiian Islands, it's actually the climate that it's located in is actually a desert here in the middle of a desert of lava. And it's kind of an oasis, obviously, it's a natural oasis here, but you're not in a highly humid, moist area. So the coolness, the apparent coolness of the blue tile and the shiny surface, I think, visually is a help to make you feel less hot in a hot environment. Yeah. And I'm actually the contributor of these slides here, this one and the next couple of ones, is when I had a chance to be there in 2013 by the invitation of our dean, Clark Willam at that time, who hired me. So thanks for all of that, Clark. And I can, you know, just tell you guys how amazing it is to walk. And as Larry pointed out, these tiles are not even, you know, each tile is different and you light them in a way that you really allude to the notion of water. So it's like walking on water. And this is very appropriate for the tropics. And if we go to the next slide, we, Larry, see us actually some more elements that all played and worked with each other here in a beautiful way. We see the continuity of the blue tile carrying down the stairs to the floor of the atrium lobby, and then the waterfalls on either side of the stairs. And then the original design had a bar tucked in below the glass block that you see on the floor there with the blue tile. That had changed with a later manager that felt the bar was not positioned. And then as a result, they had no bar for a while. I think it was a strange, unfortunately, managers come and go and some don't bother to look at the history of certain elements. And Larry did at night, was that floor illuminated from below by the bar underneath it? Right. Just a soft glow. Right. The glass block was often glassy. I think I'd like that. You said that the Japanese owner of the hotel didn't want to have the glass block be too easy to see through because it would have been a decent to look up the skirts of people of women standing above. But I really actually like the sandblasted texture of that, the kind of softness. I thought looked really nice, even though it wasn't put there just for aesthetics. Absolutely. So this is a fantastic combination of, again, the sort of illusion of walking on water, on stained glass, on ceramic tiles, actual water. And go to the next slide. All these things together, the point you made to Soto is that this, we in Hawaii having 12 of the 14 climates in the world, and this being a desert climate. And in these days, when you would design something like that, you would have the environmental engineers, I just recall, Danish architect, then, and Chancellor, Matthias Schuler, working out concepts like that where you basically, first of all, shade is key. And then you have natural ventilation, cross ventilation, because as you pointed out, there is open on both sides. And then you do something that only works in our moderate tropics and not unlike the totally 100% humidity saturated sub tropics, which is evaporative cooling, working to some degree. So this is perfect. It just looks cool, but it actually makes you feel cool, literally and figuratively speaking. And I think also in this slide, you can see the lightness and delicacy of the original stair, which kind of got lost when the heavy-handed wood came in and clad everything. Yeah. And Larry, you originally designed sort of three levels. Well, there's multiple levels to the stairway, but the original stairway has got two stairs kind of going down. And then in the center, there's another level going down even further. So it's broken up into those different planes and different tilts and slants. But as you said, that's been eliminated. So now it's just one big expanse of wood-covered stairway that all just goes down. Right. Rather than with three floating landing, the three stairs go right down into the atrium. Right. So now it's more like a gun with a wind Louisiana air. And way back, I picked this picture from online, the one on the left. I found a beautiful portraying that sort of lush, exotic, erotic jungle living in that courtyard, which was really wonderful. Again, and I had the chance and the honor and the luck to experience it myself. Next slide. So the point we want to make is this is our p.i. mobile that you just sort of kind of take care of right now. And Ron has been shuttles in that. And that car is off the same time. Then your project is and the kind of the sibling by by Ron and on a little of the holy Palami, which we will have some very fresh news to share at the end of the show. And the point I want to make, we have been using cars and vehicles for thought for a while to settle here. A point is that actually my pain is a little bit fading is a little bit getting up in age, but I'm frequently asked, is this the original pain? Meaning if something is really a cult object, something vintage, the original condition matter makes it the most valuable. The point is again, keep the original and if you repainted a car, you can always bring back the original pain by painting it again by bringing back the original. And that's what we actually want to urge and recommend to the whoever is the owner and the next renovation. Please bring back these tiles because they were beautiful and they make up for the quality of the fascinating exotic tropical lure. So please bring this back. And I was, I was asking beforehand, since I am not an experienced in the realm of architecture or construction, whether the wood had been perhaps just laid on top of the tile and the tile might be intact underneath for that to happen. One of you guys pointed out to me to know that it's very unlikely that tile has probably been removed. And Larry said that later on after in some later years when they tried to reorder more tile of the same color and same kind of model texture, it was no longer available from the original manufacturers. So bringing it back would unfortunately not be as easy as I hoped it might be. Yeah. And aging well and engraved applies to many things like your great wine, for example, Larry, that you produce and obviously to cars and to architecture and also to people. And I guess this is the next slide. And please explain to us when these pictures were shot. The photo on the left was at the 30 year anniversary party at the hotel. At that time we was doing some planning for some some sweets, the additional sweets in the main building, and also some renovation to the various public areas. The slide on the right was earlier this year at the we were there in January just after after the the new all bears operation opened up and got to see it, you know, really during the first week of operation. So it was that we were there undercover and not not as not to give it any critique or anything in a public critique rather. That was that was something that I worried about whether people were coming up to you and asking you point blank. Well, what do you think of the renovation? Unfortunately, you weren't put in that situation of having to pass judgment on it. Again, just like the total piece of artwork, you guys are aging well and great, just like your work. It's like your wine. So, again, and the more mature you get, the more beautiful you get. So that's how it is with good things and vintage things. Next slide. This is a video that we're referring to many times that Harvey Keller did with your former employer and business partner and friend at Killingsworth and Larry and he is mentioning in this like a half an hour or 45 minutes long. He mentioned your project on minute six and is very proud of it. And he also manages mentioned that four of the sweet rent out for $4,500. And that video has been a while ago because again at a dive now some some years ago. So again, it's vintage for that reason as well because it meant a lot to add as well what you designed for the firm. And next slide. Another proof of evidence of how vintage it is is that Don Hivers has included your project with a pretty extensive coverage in his legendary book, Designing Paradise as being here. Let's go to the next slide. And this is just illustrating the show. Pretty much Mal Nalami Magic Mountain. And you had some pretty good points at this photo about the analogy of the two things we see. Why don't you share that? Most people don't realize that Mal Nalami and Mal Nakea and that's the Mal Nakea mountain in this picture are immensely large mountains. They don't look as tall as they really are because their slopes are so gentle but Mal Nakea or Mal Nalami is one of the biggest mountain on earth taken from the floor of the ocean up to its peak. And in this picture, I think that the lines of the hotel go very nicely with that very gentle slope in the background because the hotel is not just a vertical box. But in fact it has a slant to its exterior as well that I think kind of echoes that gentle slope that we see in the background. Absolutely. And more as part of the resort that we don't want to miss out on having Larry share with you and let's go to the next slide. And this traces back to what gets shared with us in the volume one show about the cottages that the client was keen on. Right Larry. The cottages were determined to go to his desire so five years after the hotel open we were able to open these five bungalows which were all identical in plan. And from the time they opened, there was always a waiting list even at 4,500 a night. One of our first clients was Kevin Costner. He was in there for months when he was shooting what that terrible movie water world. We'll see in some of the additional slides how privacy was utmost because we had a lot of high end clients that would reserve these for weeks at a time. And it didn't necessarily mix with the other hotel guests. The cottage had a Butler's kitchen and the chef was coming to carry your meals so you never had to leave the cottage at all. And I want to just point out when you said privacy for high end guests, Kevin Costner very notoriously during the production of the work film Waterworld had an affair with one of the women working on the film. Probably within the confines of one of these bungalows. Let's go to the next slide before you guys get over excited about that one. And if you guys would have told me that before, I would have of course made the slides for that but now you guys all make it up in your mind. In its architecture language obviously clearly distinctively different from the hotel which we have seen before. But I find it interesting that you imported this little gazebo that is fairly very killings worthy. And you placed it in front of the more double hip sticky roofy kind of bungalows. And by the way, we're talking mid 80s. So we're in the peak of postmodernism, an era that hasn't produced the greatest architecture, but you guys just proved one can and very much so. So thanks for that. Let's go to the next slide. Here's the floor plan. Explain to us very quickly, Larry, how they were laid out. We're actually two master suites with a living dining space in the center. And the fact when these were built, Manolani still sponsored the skins game on the golf course. And we had Gary player stay in one of these and he fell in love with them. And he had us do a rendition of this that he wanted to do in South Africa on the two story with the living space being a two story space. And so of course, some could stay in this unit. So it was, I don't know if they ever got built, but there's another. He was so taken with the beauty of these bungalows that he wanted to do something similar only be able to have force leads instead of just the two. Okay, and running out of time, we need to quickly jump over the next slide, which shows us the inside out. Feel of the bungalows and then go to the next slide, which is the final slide, which is another one of the finest Carlos Denise illustrations of that situation showing very clearly that sort of layering of the interior space, the pool and then the pond and then the ocean, which you described before. The news we're promising is that at the top left, it was just announced that your partner Ron Tully Kalani billed at the same time is going for the same big huge renovation and we'll certainly talk to Ron about that more. But I want to close on a note that I will put up my new knowledge in sunglasses here that I purchased and it's night here. So I don't want to sing that very on singing the song. I wear my sunglasses at night. That's not the point, but the point is that night where I picked these up it back in Honolulu it came with this sort of sales brochure. So there are what you can see here is that they're selling these originating in Hawaii. It's sold all over the world sunglasses high and sunglasses with a picture that looks very familiar to us because it's that same situation. These are the bungalows and this is the killings worthy and flying beams is evil. So one more proof of evidence guys that killings worth is selling best, not just itself, but also sunglasses all over the world by keeping the killings worth and Larry's and Ron's work in the original way. So with that, we're at the end of volume two, but we have a volume three with having you back Larry actually for more shows but one more for this one, because Ron has been digging out a fascinating brochure of another part of the project. Among the Lonnie Groves that I scanned the documents that he handed to me kindly and we will have you share that with us in volume three. So until then, stay all safe and sound and healthy and easy breezy and easy breezy. Thank you guys and see you in two weeks for that. Okay, bye. Okay, bye.