In addition to preserving art since 1940, the museum maintained the historic Spalding House and gardens. The Spalding House in
Makiki Heights was built as a residence in 1925 by
Anna Rice Cooke, widow of
Charles Montague Cooke. At the same time, the
Honolulu Museum of Art was being built on the site of her former home on Beretania Street in Honolulu. The Makiki Heights home was designed by
Hart Wood and later enlarged by the firm of
Bertram Goodhue and Associates. The Honolulu Academy of Arts acquired the estate as a bequest from Cooke's daughter, Alice Spalding, in 1968 and operated it as an annex for the display of Japanese prints from 1970 to 1978. A private developer in the late 1970s sold it to a subsidiary of
The Honolulu Advertiser. In 1986, the
Thurston Twigg-Smith family converted it to The Contemporary Museum. Following interior renovation and the construction of the Milton Cades Pavilion, the museum opened to the public in October 1988. In addition to galleries, the museum consisted of a shop, cafe, administrative offices, storage and work areas, and a director residence. The gardens were originally landscaped between 1928 and 1941 by Reverend K. H. Inagaki, a Christian minister of Japanese ancestry. From 1979 to 1980, the gardens were resuscitated by Honolulu landscape architect James C. Hubbard. During the 1990s, Kahaluu-based landscape architect
Leland Miyano brought the gardens to their current state. The grounds display sculpture by
Satoru Abe,
Charles Arnoldi,
Deborah Butterfield,
Jedd Garet,
George Rickey,
Toshiko Takaezu,
DeWain Valentine and
Arnold Zimmerman, and a wall painting by
Paul Morrison. Spalding House is located at 2411 Makiki Heights Drive,
Honolulu, Hawaii, and is open to the public. coordinates . ==Honolulu Museum of Art at First Hawaiian Center==