tom sewell's maui art estate

On May 23rd, after our morning hike up Diamond Head, we flew from Oahu to Maui. We had a week to explore Hawaii's second largest island, and the geography of Maui resulted in us staying at three different places so we could see as much of the island as possible. We love to stay in unique hotels, inns, and B&Bs, so I was ecstatic when I discovered Tom Sewell's art estate in Haiku, and elated when it had vacancy during our first three nights on the island.

Tom Sewell is an American artist known primarily for photography and sculpture. He moved to Maui in the 1990s and eventually established a 17-acre art estate where he lives and works. The property includes a house he shares with his wife, his studio, a library, a treehouse, and the Bali house, all nestled in the jungle of wild Maui among palm trees and industrial steel sculptures made from parts of old sugar mills. Amazing artwork, a beautiful landscape, and interesting architecture all in one place! In short, this place was awesome.



We drove straight to the estate after landing in Maui, and after being greeted by Tom's student interns (holy awesome summer job!), we settled into our accommodations in the Bali house.

One step inside and it felt like we were in Indonesia...

there were Buddha heads everywhere, like this one peeking in the window over the headboard...

and a carved wooden king sized bed...

that beckoned our travel-weary selves into a delightful afternoon nap, lulled to sleep by the calls of jungle birds and the soft patter of rain on the roof.

The house is partially open to the outdoors at all times (there are lizards both inside and out!) and the sounds were one of the best features of this place - we slept like babies every night and awoke to tropical birds and roosters crowing. The nightly rainfall sounded loud enough that I feared we'd get rained on, but we never got wet. This was also the place that had an outdoor shower - which was both freeing and terrifying!



The rest of the property features sculptures from Tom's Enigma of the Mill series:












How inspiring would it be to wake up surrounded by art and nature everyday? Big thanks to Tom Sewell for letting us experience a part of this amazing lifestyle! It is now my dream to live on a beautiful island and create art in the jungle. I'm thinking I need to recruit my small business friends and start my own artists' compound - Jane, Toya, and Steffanie, are you with me? Anyone else? We could be one big happy artsy-fartsy family, living and creating in paradise!