Rolling Down Hill

Like a great snake uncoiling to its full length, The Great Wall of Wailea is stretching out its tail end a quarter of a mile away from where the first boulder was placed. The wall’s attendants began in earnest to polish its scales and make it to shine as soon as the first coils had relaxed into their new shape.















The black dressing room curtain had become tattered by the winds and constant activity above and below. Small holes and large gaps allowed glimpses of the Great Wall as landscape pockets were stuck to the sides. Colored stains were applied to cover the white concrete that had oozed from its pores during construction and to help unify the giant boulders that had come from many distant places.

The first flowers are being planted in the concrete and boulder pockets and much to my delight it wasn’t a mass of bougainvillea to entangle the Great Wall in a thorny cocoon and shed millions of dried paper blossoms into the swimming pools below. Red Gingers and monstera seem to be the dominant plants. A wise choice I think from a maintenance standpoint, yet I still can not remove the vision from my mind of old Filipino gardens scrambling over this creation in rock climbing gear.





















The Great Wall of Wailea is being strung with a colorful lei on its shiny new scales to disguise its sinister presence just steps from people’s back doors.


















The colorful outfit the Great Wall will wear will not alter the imposing protection it provides for the condominiums above. Perched right up to the edge of this fourteen foot drop they loom twice as high as the Great Wall itself. They are so close to the edge that a section of black curtain had to be removed prematurely to squeeze in a palm tree in what might be considered a side yard and not hit the eaves of the first story roof. Perhaps it is these palms being lined in a mathematically spaced row that will act as the anchor pins for future rock climbing gardeners.





















The fate of the homes lining the base of this wall was sealed when strong local powers bought the land just above. There is an eerie silence from the people below. There is nothing to do but hope that the new condo’s above have a fabulous view and that the Great Wall of Wailea was built with plenty of glue.



















Instead they are absorbed in an expensive neighborhood drama. Lots of bad feelings built over several years of inner neighborhood remodeling have culminated in a verifiable infraction of neighborhood rules. A seven foot decorative fence is just one foot too tall. That is just half of the height of the Great Wall.

These folks are no different in having strong feelings that come out in strange ways. A generational dispute over a window in the ceiling to view the beautiful mountains and sky in a Lake Geneva House was a tale I was told that reminded me of these people’s woes.
















The first majestic new condo at the head of the snake has added a pair of new eyes to look over this place.