
With its inviting makai lanai, double-pitched roof, and lava-rock walls, the library is a handsome 1950s Hawaiian-style public building. Banks of sliding and awninged windows once provided refreshing cross ventilation, but now primarily offer views and illumination for the air-conditioned structure. The building footprint in the library's front lawn is that of Kamehameha I's palace, which was constructed in 1798. The earliest known European-style building in the Islands, the palace project was undertaken by a pair of Australians, or Englishmen from Australia, who had escaped from that penal colony. The building stood until the 1860s.