Honolua Ridge: Kapalua's Agricultural Estates Above Honolua Bay

By Harrison McCandless, REALTOR®  ·  RS-86552  ·  Coldwell Banker Global Luxury  ·  Last updated October 9, 2026

Come through the Plantation Estates gate, climb past the golf-course homes and turn up Keoawa Street. By 800 feet the grass on the shoulder looks more like pasture than lawn. Honolua Bay sits below to the north-northwest, Molokaʻi dramatic the horizon beyond it, and Lānaʻi holds the southwest. I walked an upper lot here with a buyer from Calgary who said nothing for a full minute. In my business, that's a long conversation.

Honolua Ridge is Kapalua's agricultural end. Maui Land & Pineapple, the resort's developer, sold Phase I in 2004 and Phase II in 2005, and both were annexed into Plantation Estates: one gate, the resort's privileges and a zoning code that allows an orchard and a second house. In 2011 a Maui planning commissioner and lifelong farmer said on the record that nobody could farm up here at a profit, then seconded the motion in front of him anyway. I'm a farmer at heart, and on the right lot I'd take that bet. More on what grows here below.

■     Location: Kapalua Resort, West Maui. Inside the Plantation Estates gate, on the slope southeast of the Plantation Course clubhouse; Honolua Bay lies below to the north-northwest

■     Community Type: Gated agricultural estate homesites in two phases, annexed into Plantation Estates

■     Homesites: 50 across Phases I and II

■     Lot Sizes: Roughly 2.5 to 25 acres. Some lots drop into gulch, so the buildable pad runs smaller than the deed

■     Elevation: About 560 feet on lower Phase I lots to 850 feet and up on Phase II

■     Streets: Keoawa Street, Keoawa Place, Omalu Place, Pahiki Pl, Kaupalena Pl, Kalaunu Way

■     Home Sizes: About 3,500 to 7,200 sq ft of living area among homes sold or listed since 2019; vacant lots still trade

■     Built/Developer: Maui Land & Pineapple. Phase I sold 2004, Phase II released 2005; homes from the mid-2000s on

■     Governing Docs: Plantation Estates CC&Rs and the Honolua Ridge annexation amendment; Plantation Estates Lot Owners Association; Phase II road-maintenance assessment.

■     Zoning: County Agricultural; State Land Use Agricultural District

■     Ownership: Fee simple

■     Nearby Amenities:

–   Honolua and Mokulēʻia (Slaughterhouse) bays, a 45-acre Marine Life Conservation District since 1978

–   D.T. Fleming Beach and Kapalua Bay

–   The Plantation Course and Plantation House; the Bay Course and Taverna

–   Kapalua Village: Honolua Store, Merriman's Kapalua

–   The Ritz-Carlton Maui, Kapalua and The Resort at Kapalua Bay

–   Kapalua Tennis Garden

–   Maui Preparatory Academy in Napili 

Every lot is zoned Agricultural, so the County calls your house a farm dwelling and expects a farm to go with it. Each lot gets two. Since the Council passed Bill 71 in June 2024, the second can reach 1,500 square feet of developable area, up from 1,000, and the two together can't exceed 10 percent of the lot. On four acres that's about 17,400 square feet, more house than most families want to air-condition.

The homes built so far run about 3,550 to 7,200 square feet. Read the deed and the topo map together: parts of some lots fall into gulch that will not support development, and one Phase II lot of just over six acres was marketed with a buildable pad just under four.

I lit rooms in New York before I sold houses on Maui, so I check the western sky before the floor plan. From up here the sun sets behind Lānaʻi in December, into the Kalohi Channel at the equinoxes and behind Molokaʻi by June. At 800 feet that light arrives low and hot from midafternoon on. Deep overhangs and low-E glass on the west face are important. Lucky Maui supports such a seamless indoor/outdoor living experience – every home features large, covered lanais that help with that strong afternoon sun.

Honolua Bay sits below the ridge to the north-northwest. The State made it and neighboring Mokulēʻia Bay a Marine Life Conservation District in 1978, so nothing is fished or taken. Summer brings calm water for snorkeling; winter north swells turn the point into the right-hand break that draws surfers from around the world. Owners can access the bay from the end of Keoawa Street, through their gated entrance and exit. D.T. Fleming Beach, Kapalua Bay and Kapalua Village are a few minutes west: Honolua Store for coffee, Merriman's over the water, Taverna above the Bay Course. Lahaina is about nine miles south, with Maui Preparatory Academy in Napili just minutes away.

The golf has had a hard two years. In 2025, drought and a dispute over Maui Land & Pineapple's Honokōhau Ditch cut irrigation to the Plantation Course, the fairways went brown, and the PGA Tour canceled its January 2026 season opener here. The Tour won't hold an event in Hawaiʻi in 2027. The course is green again, and on October 5 Kapalua Golf announced that the LPGA Tour's LOTTE Championship will play it March 18–21, 2027. For an owner, the water story matters more than the golf, and I come back to it under Exploring Ownership.

The buyers I show property to on Keoawa Street want Kapalua's privileges without a putting green at the property line. Plantation Estates, through the same gate, sets its homes along the Plantation Course. Honolua Ridge trades the fairway frontage for acreage, elevation and the agricultural code: a second dwelling for the in-laws, an orchard, a few animals. Most of these buyers come from Vancouver, Calgary, Seattle or California, and they are planning one place for three generations.

If you need rental income to carry the place, this is the wrong ridge. A vacation rental takes a County short-term rental home permit, a State special use permit and one of the 88 permits West Maui allows, and Maui's short-term rental permits do not transfer with title. Bill 9, aimed at apartment-zoned condos, doesn't reach these lots. In 2011 the Planning Commission struck a 31-day minimum-rental condition, copied from the CC&Rs, out of a Honolua Ridge bed-and-breakfast permit, because the County's code forbids it to consider CC&Rs. The covenant stayed.

Acreage behind a gate. Two and a half to twenty-five fee-simple acres, with the Plantation Estates gatehouse between you and Honoapiʻilani Highway.

A second front door. The second farm dwelling, now up to 1,500 square feet, gives grown children or in-laws a place of their own.

Two islands and a bay. Molokaʻi to the northwest, Lānaʻi to the southwest, Honolua Bay below.

Kapalua's privileges. Eligibility for the Kapalua Club: preferred golf on both courses, the Beach Club, the Tennis Garden and the spa at The Resort at Kapalua Bay.

Something growing. A County planner who visited one lot here in 2011 reported more than 70 kinds of trees on it, lychee and avocado among them. I'd start with citrus.

Start with water. Drinking water comes from Hawaiʻi Water Service, which bought Kapalua Water Company in 2021; irrigation comes down Maui Land & Pineapple's Honokōhau Ditch. Drought restrictions banned irrigation for much of 2025. On August 18, 2025, the Plantation Estates Lot Owners Association joined the golf courses' owner, two condo associations and a farm in suing MLP over the ditch; MLP countersued, blaming the drought and the plaintiffs' own use. Trial is set for March 29, 2027. In May 2026 the County signed a memorandum of understanding to buy the system, pending Council approval, and MLP says Kapalua has no irrigation restrictions today. Ask the association in writing what the suit has cost owners, whether an assessment is coming and what irrigation allocation your lot carries.

Then read the Plantation Estates CC&Rs, the Honolua Ridge annexation amendment and the design guidelines before you fall for a floor plan, and ask the Planning Department what agricultural use it expects before it permits a farm dwelling. Get a binding insurance quote on the lot before you remove contingencies; since the August 2023 fires, West Maui coverage takes longer to place than buyers expect. I'll walk the lot and the documents with you and tell you which answers I'd want before writing an offer.

Your competition is small and in plain view: 2 homes listed at $9.7 million and $12.2 million and 5 lots at $1.8 million to $3.3 million. The closed record is thinner. The last home sales closed at $5.0 million and $6.5 million in 2021 and $5.3 million in September 2022. A buyer's agent will open with that gap. I price from the RAM MLS record, adjust for acreage, buildable pad, view corridor and condition, and show you the comp the other side will use before they use it.

Then the marketing must find the buyer for Kapalua acreage, who is usually somewhere else the week you list. Coldwell Banker Global Luxury reaches that buyer in Vancouver, Calgary, Seattle, California and well beyond, with photography taken at the hour the land looks best.

Back on Keoawa Street in the late afternoon, the trades ease off and the Plantation Course goes gold below you. By December the sun will set behind Lānaʻi. By June it will be back over Molokaʻi. Whoever builds up here gets to watch it make the trip. If you'd like to see the ridge at that hour, or talk through a lot, a home or a sale, call me.