The big house set on a knoll beyond the hydroelectric powerhouse on Wainiha Powerhouse Road was built circa 1910 and was originally the home of Alfred Menefoglio and his wife Delfina.
An electrical engineer born in Italy, Alfred Menefoglio (1874-1932) had arrived in Hawai‘i in 1900 and had engaged in plantation engineering work on O‘ahu, Maui and Hawai‘i Island before moving to Kaua‘i in 1905 to help superintend the installation of the Wainiha powerhouse and its power lines for McBryde Sugar Co.
He later became superintendent of the powerhouse and a consulting engineer for McBryde.
Menefoglio also served on the Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors for 12 years and took an active part in civic and community affairs.
Delfina Menefoglio, also from Italy, was a concert pianist who’d come to Hawai‘i in 1901 and ran a medical dispensary in a wing of their Wainiha home.
The Menefoglios occupied their home in Wainiha for many years, after which it eventually became the “McBryde supervisor’s house,” where McBryde Sugar Co. supervisory personnel and their guests could retreat on weekends, holidays and vacations.
During the 1980s, while employed by McBryde as warehouse supervisor, my wife Ginger and I and our children Michelle and Brett and other family members would often spend weekends there.
We’d explore Wainiha Valley inland of the house, with its numerous Hawaiian archaeological sites, and we’d fish for ‘o‘opu and swim in a deep Wainiha River pool not far from the supervisor’s house.
Jackie Kahalolani Hashimoto (1928-2000), the Wainiha power plant operator and supervisor house caretaker — and quite a character — would drop by and talk story with us and have a beer or two with me.
I recall that Jackie placed ti leaves in the dispensary wing of the supervisor house believed to be haunted in order to ward off malevolent spirits, and at the remote water intake station some five miles upstream of the powerhouse, I once saw him faithfully set aside ‘opa‘e for Menehune to eat.
“Yes,” he assured me, “they’re nearby.”
Kaua‘i Resources Co. now maintains the old Menefoglio house.
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Hank Soboleski has been a resident of Kauai since the 1960s. Hank’s love of the island and its history has inspired him, in conjunction with The Garden Island Newspaper, to share the island’s history weekly. The collection of these articles can be found here: https://bit.ly/2IfbxL9 and here https://bit.ly/2STw9gi Hank can be reached at hssgms@gmail.com
My father worked for Kaua’i Electric and as a child I remember staying in this house while he and others were working on the powerline from the Wainiha Powerhouse over the mountains to the Hanapepe Powerhouse. It must have been in the late 40’s or early 50’s. I was very young, 4 or 5 so I don’t remember much. I do remember playing on the big front porch and picking dandelions in the yard. I remember the beauty and quiet of the place. I thought it was magical. I enjoyed this article very much. Mahalo.
I was real young when we stayed with you at that house. I barely remember where it is but I know it’s up that road somewhere. Thank you Uncle Hank, wonderful memories with grandma & grandma.