WAIMEA — Nativity scenes at Christmas are commonplace throughout the Christian world. In the Kohala Mountains, there’s one that’s particularly unique.
At Kahua Ranch, along Kohala Mountain Road, is a small green chapel built in the 1840s in the nearby town of Kawaihae Uka. It was moved there in the early 1950s by Ronald “Pono” von Holt, one of the ranch’s first owners, after Kawaihae Uka was abandoned.
The quaint wooden structure was lovingly restored in recent years and nowadays, in addition to holding Sunday services twice a month, it is used for weddings and funerals for friends and family of the ranch.
One of the most remarkable features of the chapel is a fresco that hangs behind the unassuming alter. It was created by renowned Paris-born artist Jean Charlot, who first visited Hawaii in 1949 to create a fresco for the University of Hawaii at Manoa and ended up spending close to 30 years in the islands. The work inside the Kahua church, “Nativity at the Ranch,” was commissioned by Atherton Richards as a tribute to von Holt, his close friend and partner.
All of the figures in the fresco are modeled after ranch hands and friends of the ranch. Ronald von Holt himself is seen kneeling at the bottom right in his trademark 10-gallon hat; trusted ranch foreman John Iokepa stands behind von Holt; the Mother Mary figure is modeled after Ida Lincoln, their beloved ranch cook; Butchy Lincoln is the young boy; and the baby Jesus is Joan “Fluffy” Greenwell, the daughter of Rally, the manager of the ranch at the time. The purebred Hereford bull and calf represent the advancements of what was going on at Kahua.
“As I understand, this was commissioned by my great uncle, Atherton Richards, as a memorial to his business partner, Ronald, who is represented in the artwork,” Tim Richards said. “It is dated 1953.”
Charlot endeared himself to the people of Hawaii, and his prolific works are seen in many public buildings and churches throughout the state. The Jean Charlot Collection is permanently housed at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library on Oahu.