Paradise Found
With its tropical climate, stunning scenery and laid-back living, America’s 50th state is a favored second home for a number of Club Members.
Quinn Riordan wasn’t looking for paradise when he began to plan his Tokyo exit.
In 2010, after more than two decades navigating the world of finance and investing in Japan, Riordan and his wife, Rika, began thinking about their next move.
The youngest of six children from Wichita, Kansas, Riordan started scouting different parts of the United States for a place to land. The Club Members combed both coasts and many places in between. They knew that finding anything resembling the community of Rika’s native Japan, where the couple’s children, Takuma and Tatiana, were born and raised, would be difficult.
In September of that year, Riordan, an avid swimmer, flew to Honolulu to compete in the annual Waikiki Roughwater Swim. He had been to Hawaii before, with his family, to vacation on Maui and Hawaii Island.
But the 3.7-kilometer race brought him for an extended period to the state capital, on the island of Oahu. He was immediately taken with the town. It had everything a bicultural family could want, from Japanese restaurants and grocery stores to the customs and culture of home.
“Being an island paradise is a good place to start,” says a smiling Riordan, sitting poolside at his Moroccan-style villa on the slopes of Diamond Head, a 500,000-year-old dormant volcano, situated along the ocean in one of east Honolulu’s most exclusive neighborhoods. “It’s uniquely well suited for Japanese-American families. It is geographically in the middle and it is also culturally in the middle. Nobody really has to sacrifice. Being here, you have the best of both worlds.”
Hawaii is recognized as the “melting pot of the Pacific,” with nearly one in four residents identifying themselves as multiracial, according to the US Census Bureau. Around 18 percent of the population is of mixed Asian and Caucasian heritage.
“So much of the population is of Japanese descent,” says Riordan, 52. “Nobody asks you what you are here. That’s really nice.”
Since Hawaii is about a 7.5-hour flight from Tokyo and five and a half hours from Los Angeles, it is a natural vacation spot for both Japanese nationals and American visitors. About 1.5 million Japanese visit the islands every year, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority, and that favored destination status has helped create a strong sense of community.
Riordan and his family immediately found a social life after buying their home in 2011. “There are a lot of Tokyo people here, especially in the summer and during the winter vacation,” says Riordan, who retains a home in Tokyo and travels frequently between the two residences.
With their son a senior at the University of Miami and their daughter a freshmen at Riordan’s alma mater, Duke University, the family gathers in Hawaii for the holidays and games of volleyball in Kapiolani Park, near their home, and trips to North Shore beaches. Rika often converts their living room into a fitness studio and hosts sessions of Zumba, the popular dance exercise, for friends and family from Japan.
After a career in finance, Riordan decided to wind down his investment business when he bought his Honolulu house. “I originally thought you could still work from here, but when I’m here I just don’t feel like working. Mitsubishi Electric earnings report? Yeah, who cares?” says Riordan, who has picked up freediving while in Hawaii. “There are people who come and set up here. They have the morning off and work Tokyo hours. I could never get there.”
Riordan is far from the first American—or Club Member—living in Japan to seek solace and a second home in Hawaii. The average single family home in Honolulu, where the majority of the state’s 1.4 million residents live, hovers around $725,000, making it one of the most expensive cities in America. The high-end real estate market has attracted global investors since Hawaii became a US territory in 1900.
Japanese culture took root in Hawaii during the 1880s, when the island’s economy was dominated by American-owned sugar cane companies. Plantation managers recruited Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Portuguese and Chinese migrant laborers to cut and harvest sugar cane. By 1923, the largest percentage of Hawaii’s population was Japanese, according to the US Census Bureau. Within a decade, Japanese immigrants and their descendants enjoyed majority status in Hawaii and soon established themselves in business, government, healthcare and academia.
Japanese direct investments in Hawaii peaked between 1985 and 1995, Japan’s bubble economy years, when individuals and businesses poured $12 billion into residential, hotel and commercial acquisitions, compared with $850 million in the preceding 10 years.
Americans living and working in Japan who choose a second life in Hawaii do so for an array of reasons that ultimately boil down to a simple truth: Hawaii blends a relaxed island ambience with top-notch infrastructure, a thriving tourism industry and the US rule of law.
The law is partly what attracted John Durkin, a former Club president, and his wife, Makiko, to the island of Maui in 1998. Well, that and the windsurfing at the island’s Kanaha Beach Park.
“Hawaii is America,” says Durkin, 57. “When you own a home, you have title to the home. In other places around the world, the rule of law changes with the government and you may not be able to keep title.”
Born in New York City, Durkin first came to Japan while serving in the US Navy. During his 25 years in Japan, he has worked in a number of executive positions, and he is currently one of the principal investors and chief financial officer of a sushi restaurant chain.
The Durkins spend about 80 percent of their time in Tokyo and the rest on Maui. Their home in Kaanapali, the island’s original resort area, boasts views of the ocean and the neighboring islands of Lanai and Molokai.
“We have beautiful island views. A lot of ocean and outdoor activities are always available and we have everything from small town general stores to Whole Foods,” Durkin says. “Compared to Tokyo, it is completely laid-back. The people are very polite. Eventually, I will be retiring one day and coming back to Maui where I will work as a Walmart greeter or Uber driver.”
Fellow Member Greg Jones, a veteran Tokyo investment banker, bought his home in Honolulu with his wife, Mayumi, in 2003. Since the couple had several friends who owned a second residence in Hawaii, they had an established social circle on Oahu.
Jones, 59, and his wife raised their son primarily in Japan. When he finished middle school, their affinity for their second home motivated them to send him to Punahou, the prestigious private school in downtown Honolulu that counts former US President Barack Obama among its many successful alumni.
Like Riordan and Durkin, Jones enjoys the outdoors. He plays plenty of golf and tennis and enjoys hiking and open-air yoga with his wife.
Having left the grind of international finance in 2015, he spends the majority of his time in Honolulu.
“The thing about Hawaii, it is basically one of the only places in the world with a tropical paradise and first-world infrastructure,” he says. “Tokyo to Hawaii is about as different as you can get. It was a very good move.”
First Friday: Hawaiian Luau Night
June 2 | 6–8pm
Words: Peter Boylan
