Puuhonua o Honaunau Big Island Ceramic Art Tile
— — where the law could not follow.
Not only on a wall.
“A point of black lava on the south Kona coast where the Pacific cups a small bay. A coconut grove, a wall of fitted stone older than the United States, and the carved kiʻi standing guard at the reconstructed Hale o Keawe. In old Hawaiʻi this ground was puʻuhonua, a sanctuary. A kapu-breaker who reached it, by sea if they had to swim, was absolved by the priest and could return home. Visitors are asked to walk softly. The land remembers what it was for.
Puuhonua o Honaunau Big Island Ceramic Art Tile, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park sits on a 420-acre point of black lava on the south Kona coast of Hawaiʻi Island, about 25 miles south of Kailua-Kona. The park preserves a puʻuhonua, the Hawaiian word for place of refuge, alongside royal grounds once occupied by the chiefs of the Kona district. It is reached from Highway 11 via the steep descent of Highway 160, ending at the shoreline where Hōnaunau Bay meets the coconut grove. The site was authorized as a national historical park in 1961 and now includes reconstructed structures, fishponds, and lava tide pools at sea level.
The most visible feature on the ground is the Great Wall, called Pā Puʻuhonua, built around 1550 from fitted basalt stones without mortar. It runs roughly 1,000 feet along the south side of the royal grounds, standing about 10 feet high and 17 feet thick, and it separated the chiefs' compound from the sanctuary on the seaward side. Along the reconstructed Hale o Keawe, the small thatched mausoleum that once held the bones of 23 chiefs, stands a row of carved kiʻi, wooden images of Hawaiian akua. The current kiʻi are replicas hand-carved by Hawaiian artists for the National Park Service, replaced as the salt air wears them down.
The park is open daily from 8:15 a.m. to sunset, with the visitor contact station closing earlier in the afternoon. NPS entry fees apply per vehicle (good for seven days) and per walk-in visitor, and the America the Beautiful annual pass is honoured. Visitors are asked to treat the puʻuhonua as a sacred site rather than a beach: no climbing on the walls or the platforms, no entering the fishponds, no touching the kiʻi. Snorkelling at the adjacent Honaunau Bay, known locally as Two Step, happens outside the park boundary on county land. Rangers offer short orientation talks at the Hale o Keawe several times a day during operating hours.