When architect George J. “Pete” Wimberly died in 1996, he was possibly the most prominent resort architect in the world. His designs for the famed Waikikian Hotel with its hyperbolic paraboloid shell, the former Bank of Hawai‘i building (today the Waikiki Galleria Tower) featuring white interlacing arches made to resemble the skin of a pineapple, and the original International Market Place for his college buddy Donn Beach (the project’s price tag at the time: $900,000) among other majestic structures captured the imagination of Honolulu city-goers. It helped establish Waikiki as a visitor destination whose natural beauty was nearly matched by its architectural marvels.

Over the course of his career, Wimberly evolved from a journeyman architect working at Pearl Harbor to one of the principals of Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo (WATG), a global leader in tourism and destination design with offices in Honolulu, New York, London, Shanghai, and beyond.

And yet, he was also the type of guy who regularly wore Bermuda shorts and sneakers to the office. “He liked tropical breezes, and he hated air conditioning,” architect Donald Goo told the Honolulu Weekly in 2000, four years after Wimberly’s death at age 81. As a designer, Wimberly was aware of the European-leaning architectural norms of mainland America — and rejected them.

Instead, he favored developing a regional architecture style for Hawai‘i that integrated local materials, such as lava rock, coral stone, wood beams, thatch, and bamboo. He prioritized patterns and motifs that stemmed from diverse island cultures. “When people come to the Pacific,” Wimberly was once quoted as saying, “they want to see something that looks Pacific, not some New York hotel.”

So when Wimberly was hired in the mid-1940s to convert the ramshackle Golden Palms restaurant into Waikiki’s newest steakhouse, Canlis’ Charcoal Broiler, he designed the restaurant with the Pacific in mind. Wimberly employed black rock walls and a pitched A-frame roof modeled after Samoan fale afolau, or longhouses, perfect for helping to ventilate the restaurant when owner Peter Canlis demanded a copper broiler be placed in the middle of the dining room for guests to experience firsthand. (“[Diners] got a lot of smoke in their eyes with their steaks,” Canlis told the newspapers, before the two Petes figured out how to make it work.)

Local photographer, welder, and general jack-of-all-trades Billy Howell, who built Canlis’ custom charbroil grill, liked Wimberly’s concept so much that he hired the architect to design his own house in a similar fashion. Often identified by passersby as the “home that looks like the Charcoal Broiler in Waikiki,” according to a 1958 Star-Bulletin article, Howell’s residence on Kaiko‘o Place was a striking sight. Its 25-foot-tall A-frame roof overlooked the neighborhood and was anchored in place by heavy timbers set in a concrete foundation.

The front doors, merely a pair of sliding shoji screens, gave the home a sense of openness, as did the glass louver windows that ran from eaves to floor and faced the ocean for views of the endless surf below. This airiness was crucial — especially anytime Howell fired up his living room broiler.

“Just like the restaurant, there was a huge charcoal grill in the middle of the house with no gas line, no exhaust, and no automated venting… It was immediately clear this grill wasn’t going to work in a modern-day living situation,” says interior designer Sophia Lin, who bought this home last year with her husband, film producer Dan Lin. With 20 years of experience renovating and restoring homes — especially mid-century ones, her favorite era of design — Lin knew how to preserve the property’s best qualities while making improvements in a way that was true to the time period and style. For example, replacing the house’s paper-thin shoji front doors (which didn’t lock) with mid-century-inspired metal doors featuring vertical viewing panes. Or leaving the glass louvers (perfect to facilitate trade winds) instead of installing more modern awning or casement windows.

“My goal wasn’t just to put in my favorite style of cabinets or countertops but to make design decisions that were true to the space,” Lin says. “It was about listening to the soul of the home, in a way, and returning the home to what it wants to be.”

Lin’s updates were subtle, but significant. She gave the interior and exterior of the home a fresh coat of paint, new light fixtures, and installed solar roller shades and Haiku ceiling fans in the living room. A stone vessel sink, teak vanity, and walk-in shower with travertine tile was added to the primary bathroom. Meanwhile the kitchen was modernized with quartz countertops, a cement tile bar station, custom 60-inch range hood, and new appliances, such as a KitchenAid refrigerator, dishwasher, and Viking stove (no coal necessary). Outside, in lieu of a swimming pool (“We’re right across from the ocean, which is kind of the best pool you can get,” says Lin), a Denali Sundance spa was added to the freshly finished deck.

“When the stars are out and you can see the Milky Way and hear waves crashing all while sitting in a hot tub on a cool night, that’s unbeatable,” Lin says. Altogether, the changes have been considerable. Yet, the property today is as closely aligned to Wimberly’s vision as it ever was. “With every adjustment, I asked myself: Am I respecting what the original architect and designer wanted for the house?” asks Lin. In a 1991 interview, Wimberly believed that “it was time we began to think and to act on ideas about development of a regional architecture for Hawai‘i.” Though his best-known works mostly exist today in the form of tropical resorts and commercial centers, there are still a few midcentury residential gems carrying on Wimberly’s legacy. Like the architect himself, these homes are unique, local in a distinctive way, and invaluable.