Bob Liljestrand had a life long interest in architecture sparked from his family’s engagement with architect Vladimir Ossipoff, designer of the Liljestrand House in the early 1950s. As the founding president and director of the Liljestrand Foundation, Bob led it through a time of growth and transition, while completing a book on the development and history of the House.

Born and raised in Hawai‘i, Bob was an active member in Oahu’s civic life and was deeply involved in the architecture and design community. He served as a board member of the Hawai‘i Architectural Foundation and a member of the Advisory Council to the School of Architecture, University of Hawai‘i. He was a former five-term president and board member at the Adventurers’ Club of Honolulu.

Bob lectured extensively on the Liljestrand House and Vladimir Ossipoff’s collaboration with his family at such institutions as the Pacific Club, the University of Hawai‘i, AIA Headquarters in New York City, and the German Museum of Architecture in Frankfurt. He also enjoyed giving adventure talks at multiple events, including a gala hosted by the Los Angeles Adventurers’ Club at the Ambassador Hotel’s Cocoanut Grove Night Club.

In addition to his interest in architecture, Bob was an accomplished photographer and filmmaker. He produced three documentaries that were featured in a variety of film festivals, including the Hawai‘i International Film Festival, American Film Institute Festival Los Angeles (formerly known as the Los Angeles International Film Festival) and the Chicago Festival, where his film Moloka’i Solo won a Gold Plaque. His photography has been featured in a number of one-man gallery exhibitions and was published in the Los Angeles Times Sunday Supplement. One of his works was nominated for a Na Hoku Hano Hano Award (Hawai‘i’s Grammy Awards) for a Kapono Beamer CD cover.

Prior to devoting his time to the Liljestrand Foundation, Bob worked as a hospital administrator at the Leeward Hospital and Clinic and as a designer and draftsman for a Honolulu architect. 

Bob held a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from California State University at San Jose, a Master in Public Health from the University of Hawaii, and a Master in Architecture from the University of New Mexico.

Bob passed away on October 23, 2021, at Liljestrand House.  

Board President Shan Liljestrand is a commercial, narrative, and documentary cinematographer living in Los Angeles, CA. He graduated from Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film and Television in 2012, and quickly started work in the industry. His second feature film effort, Fear Inc, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival with multiple sold out screenings and he has continued his narrative work with features and shorts that have premiered at multiple festivals. His commercial clients include Mattel, Disney, Pixar, Aleve, Expedia, and many others. His personal work focuses on portrait photography while traveling as a method of meeting people and engaging with the different cultures around the world. Growing up in Hawai’i and being exposed to mid-century architecture at a young age, Shan has grown an appreciation for the art and craftsmanship of the medium, especially the principles he’s learned from his father, Bob Liljestrand, while hearing all the stories that make up the Liljestrand House.

Board member Joe Ferraro is a principal and co-founder of Ferraro Choi and Associates, Ltd., an environmentally oriented architectural, interior design and research firm located in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is professionally licensed in Hawaii and New York.

Joe achieved recognition as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 2008 for his significant contributions to environmentally sustainable professional practice. He presently serves on a number of boards including the Hawaii Architectural Foundation, a non-profit organization advancing knowledge of architecture in the community, and the Rotary Club of Honolulu Sunrise. He also serves as an adjunct instructor for the University of Hawaii’s doctoral degree practicum program. Joe is an advisor to the University of Hawaii’s Sea Grant College Program and advisor to the board of Malama Manoa, a local community-based organization.

He has been a panelist and speaker at numerous professional and public venues including the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Laboratories for the 21st Century”, the Adventurers’ Club, The Antarctican Society, the University of Hawaii’s Sea Grant Ascent Symposium, and the Urban Land Institute.

Joe is the author of several papers on planning and sustainable design for research facilities in the Antarctic. His 30 years of work in the region includes the design of the Crary Science and Technology Laboratory and the Information Technology and Communication Center at McMurdo Station, Ross Island as well as the Amundsen-Scott Research Station at the geographic South Pole. In 1985 he was the recipient of the Antarctic Service Medal from the United States Congress for his committed work in the Antarctic for the National Science Foundation.

He was the principal in charge for the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s new Information Technology Center and a collaborative principal with HOK San Francisco for the design of the new NOAA I Inouye Regional Center on Ford Island. He continues his design practice throughout Hawaii, the Pacific and in Antarctica as a principal in charge of the firm’s work. Joe’s office is located in the historic IBM Building, a building designed by Vladimir Ossipoff and certified LEED CI Platinum in August of 2011.

Joe received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute. He worked in New York City for eleven years before moving to Hawaii in 1982, where he attended the University of Hawaii School of Architecture for undergraduate and graduate studies.

Board member Jack Gillmar’s appreciation for historic houses stems from growing up in Alfred Preis’ first residential design (1939) built in the center of Waikiki. Preis was one of Hawaii’s leading architects who worked collaboratively with Ossipoff on a number of projects. He was also a founder of the Hawai’i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. Jack’s early years in his Preis designed home had a profound effect on him and led to his enthusiastic support of Liljestrand House and of architectural preservation in general. Jack is a member of the Hawai’i chapter of Docomomo, the international organization headquartered in Europe and devoted to the DOcumentation and COnservation of the MOdern MOvement.

Jack has undertaken a number of historic site restorations, including the interior of his Alfred Preis home and a partial restoration of the historic David Adler designed La Pietra (1920), now the Hawaii School for Girls, that borders Kapiolani Park at Diamond Head. President of the Kapiolani Park Preservation Society for four years, Jack continues to serve as a Board advisor.

When his childhood home designed by Preis was threatened by high-rise development pressures in Waikiki, Jack and his wife, Janet, moved the structure to a quiet mountain setting. Janet designed a new architectural envelope, while the interior design elements of the original house
were saved.

Jack is currently engaged with three associates in producing a book on the life and work of Alfred Preis.

In addition to his interest in historic homes, Jack is dedicated to preserving Hawaiian heritage. Jack and Janet established the Friendship Garden Foundation in 1978 to preserve and maintain the Friendship Garden (1928), a ten-acre National Historic Site in Kaneohe, Oahu. The Garden was originally the recreational component of the nation’s first intentional inter-racial subdivision. Jack also serves on the board of Manoa Heritage Center, where he helps further the Center’s mission to promote the thoughtful stewardship of the natural and cultural heritage of Hawaii.

Prior to his work in preservation, Jack and Janet served as Peace Corps volunteers on Pohnpei Island in Micronesia. He also taught history for 30 years at La Pietra School. For ten years Jack served as Chairman of the Parker School Trust on the Island of Hawaii.

Jack holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in
Counseling Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and an MAT from Harvard University.

Board member William (Bill) Chapman is lifelong historic preservationist with a passion for old houses. With widespread experience in the US, Asia, and the Pacific, he is director of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, professor in and chair of the Department of American Studies, and interim dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

A four-time Fulbright scholar and American Candidate at the International Center for Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property in Rome (ICCROM), Bill has traveled extensively throughout Southeast Asia and has served as a lecturer at Silpakorn, Kasetsart, and Chulalongkorn Universities in Thailand and at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Bill is a frequent contributor to UNESCO projects and is a member of the ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) International Scientific Committees on the Theory and Philosophy of Conservation and Restoration and on Vernacular Architecture.

Widely published in scholarly journals, he has also written on subjects ranging from the historic Volcano House Hotel in Hawai‘i to the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. His most recent publication is Ancient Sites of Southeast Asia: A Traveler’s Guide through History, Ruins, and Landscapes (Bangkok: River Books, 2017).

Bill serves on the Hawai’i Historic Sites Review Board and plays an active role in historic preservation in the state. In 2011, he received the Frank Haines Award for Lifetime Contributions to Historic Preservation from the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation. He has also served on the board of the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation. In 2016, he was elected a Fellow of the Explorers Club of New York in recognition of his many projects abroad.

Bill was educated at Columbia (M.S. in Historic Preservation, 1978) and at Oxford University in England (D.Phil.in Anthropology, 1982). He specializes in architectural recording, the history of historic preservation, and materials conservation. He was also a contributing author to the Hawai’i Modernism Context Study assembled by Fung and Associates (2011) in conjunction with Historic Hawaii Foundation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

He is married to Phensinee Rueangpruek Chapman and is the father of two daughters and two stepchildren. He lives in Honolulu and part-time in Bangkok.

Vicky graduated from Punahou High School and spent her formative years in Hawaii as a young surfer. In 1957, she won The Makaha International Surfing Championships, an early surfing contest. Along with her mother, who was also an accomplished surfer, Vicky was invited to Club Waikiki in Lima, Peru as mother-daughter Hawaiian surfing ambassadors.

Her interest in fashion led her to establish a sportswear and textile design company that she directed for a number of years. Based in California and Hawaii, the company’s products were distributed by boutiques, department stores and museum shops across the country.

Vicky also taught for many years at a Title I School in Waianae, Hawaii. While teaching, she collaborated actively with community groups to provide better education and services for her students. In addition, she successfully pursued grant funding to start an early education and childcare facility for teen parents to enable them to finish school and graduate. Head Start later took over the childcare center and Vicky collaborated and worked closely with the staff.

While serving as a Foundation Board member, Vicky also manages family property in Hawaii. She is the mother of two grown daughters, an avid gardener and is passionately involved in animal rescue, working with cats and dogs.

Vicky received her AA from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles and BS at California State University Long Beach in Family and Consumer Science, both with a focus on apparel manufacture and fashion design. She holds an MS from Oregon State University in Clothing and Textiles with a minor in Adult Education. Vicky is certified in Secondary teaching and Special Education.

Board member Brian Lam is a journalist and entrepreneur who has written for a number of noted publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Wired Magazine, where he also served as an editor. For five years Brian served as editor-in-chief of the technology site Gizmodo where he pioneered a modern rebellious brand of journalism drawing from the style of Hunter S. Thompson. His work at Gizmodo led to negotiations with Steve Jobs over the return of a lost prototype iPhone, and banishment from the world’s largest and most prestigious technology conferences.

In 2011 Brian founded The Wirecutter, a web publication dedicated to research-based recommendations for its readers about the best gear and technology to purchase. Wirecutter was bootstrapped and built over five years with no outside fundraising. In late 2016 The New York Times acquired The Wirecutter. It was the first time in its 164-year history that the paper acquired a company because that company could produce a product the quality of which the paper could not match or surpass.

Brian documented the Aquarius undersea research labs in the Florida Keys, worked with IMAX film crews in Indonesia, and with the help of robot submarines searched for lost gold in flooded northern California mines.

Brian worked for five years in a boxing gym in San Francisco before moving to Honolulu, where he surfs and spends his time restoring and caring for an historic home built by Albert Ives, another noted Hawaii architect, with a pool house designed by Vladimir Ossipoff.

Sheryl Seaman has more than 50 years of experience in the design field in both Architecture and Interior Design in Hawaii, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, and Malaysia. With G70 since 1978, she formed the Interior Design Department in 1985 from a conviction that people are most affected by the things they see touch and feel every day. Her goal is to foster creativity and well-being for all people where they work and play. Therefore, her award-winning work is focused on hospitality, healthcare, and workplace environments.

Board member Dean Sakamoto is a practicing architect and educator with a national presence and diverse local expertise. He is the founder and director of SHADE, a collaborative design practice and a non-profit professional training and community service institute. In 2014 he was appointed by Governor Neil Abercrombie to serve on the Board of Commissioners of the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.

As a licensed architect in the states of Connecticut and Hawaii, Dean holds certificates from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED AP) from the U.S. Green Building Council. In 2010, he was elevated to fellowship by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) for his nationwide contribution to architectural education. He currently serves on the AIA National Advisory Committee on Resilience.

His Honolulu, Hawaii and New Haven, Connecticut-based firm, Dean Sakamoto Architects/SHADE group (DSA) is known for its environmentally sensitive and culturally specific designs of buildings and places. DSA’s projects include the Juliet Rice Wichman Botanical Research Center in Hawaii, which received an AIA Honolulu Award of Excellence in 2010. At Yale University DSA restored and transformed the historic Graves House at 51 Hillhouse Avenue, a five story civil-war-era mansion (b.1860), into a 21st century archaeology lab and teaching center for the Department of Anthropology (2010).

Since 1993, Dean served on the university faculties of Yale University School of Architecture and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies; University of Hawaii at Manoa School of Architecture and the Department of Urban and Regional Planning; Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York; and Chaminade University of Honolulu, Institute of Fine Arts.

At Yale, Dean was a critic in design, teaching graduate and undergraduate courses, and served as the director of exhibitions at the Yale Architecture Gallery, where he was responsible for the professionalization of its programs. His scholarly work includes the award-winning book and the international traveling exhibition, Hawaiian Modern: The Architecture of Vladimir Ossipoff, organized by the Honolulu Museum of Art and curated by Dean. The Hawaiian Modern book is now in its third printing (Yale University Press in association with the Honolulu Museum of Art, 2007).

Dean holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Oregon, Master of Architecture from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and a Master of Environmental Design from Yale University.

Advisory Board member Keira Alexandra is the co-founder of Work-Order, a New York-based studio specializing in brand, strategy and motion design. Several of Work-Order’s projects, including logos and branding systems for Kodak, Now This and The New York Times, have appeared on “best of” lists.

Keira began her graphic design career by working at some of New York’s most notable design firms including M&Co., Bureau, and Number 17. She then became art director of on-air design at MTV, creating numerous network rebrands, and creative director of Sundance TV, where she worked with Al Franken, Robert Altman and other independent film directors.

Keira lectures frequently about design and has taught graphic design in the graduate program at Yale since 1999. From 2008 to 2010, she served on the board of the American Institute of Graphic Arts New York, a national non-profit that serves design professionals.

Her homes have been featured on the covers of Metropolis and Dwell Magazines.

Keira graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1990 with a BFA. She is the daughter of Alexandra Ossipoff and spent her childhood summers at the residence of her grandparents, Raelyn and Vladimir Ossipoff, in Kuliouou, Hawaii.

Advisory Board member Wei Fang is the founder and director of Interisland Terminal, an organization that presents contemporary art, design and film and explores the intersection of creativity, innovation and civic engagement in Hawai‘i.

Wei began her career as a museum educator, working at the Harvard Art Museums, the de Young Museum in San Francisco, and the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, now the Honolulu Museum of Art – Spalding House. At each institution, she served on planning teams for major museum construction and expansion projects—each intended to better integrate the museums with their audience communities. From this, she developed a passion for architecture and mission-driven building projects.

After completing her MBA, Wei moved to London to manage an expansion project for the auction house Phillips de Pury and Co. Architecture and Design was a focus of the company, which organized ground-breaking collaborations with contemporary architects such as Zaha Hadid and Shigeru Ban. After returning to Honolulu in 2010, Wei helped found the non-profit Interisland Terminal, a place-making organization. Working with Kamehameha Schools and several local architects, she helped establish the art and design bookshop, a coffee bar, the gallery R&D, and the event space, Kaka’ako Agora. During this time, Interisland Terminal also partnered with the Liljestrand Foundation, Historic Hawaii Foundation, AIGA Honolulu, and Docomomo Hawaii on diverse public education programs.

In addition to Interisland Terminal, Wei currently focuses her attention on boutique, design-driven, infill projects in Honolulu’s urban core. Her current residential project, Hau‘oli Lofts, is a 9-unit condo currently under-construction in the McCully neighborhood. She also serves on the board of the Hawaii Community Development Agency, which oversees master planning, stewardship and development of Kaka‘ako, Kalaeloa and He‘eia.

Wei has a BA from Brown University, a Masters in Education from Harvard University, and an MBA from Columbia University.

Advisory Board member Raj George is the cofounder and executive director of Hibiscus Asia + Pacific Forum, a new Honolulu-based organization bringing together innovative business leaders from across Asia Pacific to collaborate on building a sustainable, resilient future.

Raj is also CEO of Mughal Ventures, a business development agency for Asia Pacific brands.  Recent clients include Bintang Beer (Bali), Tiger Beer (Singapore), ThaiBev (Thailand), The Andaman, a Luxury Collection Resort, Langkawi (Malaysia), and Treasure Bay Bintan (Indonesia). 

He has developed brand partnerships with companies and organizations including American Express, Docomomo Hawai‘i, Havaianas, Momofuku, New Museum, Opening Ceremony, Salvage Public, Singapore Airlines, Singapore Tourism Board, Sonos, United Nations Global Compact, Vans, W Hotels, Whole Foods, and World Wildlife Fund (‘Save Tigers Now’ campaign).

Raj was previously the founding director of the Cal State East Bay Small Business Development Center, a partnership between the U. S. Small Business Administration and the California State University system offering classes and consulting for San Francisco Bay Area entrepreneurs.  Corporate partners included Apple, AT&T, Citibank, Google, IDEO, JPMorgan Chase, McKinsey & Company, and Microsoft.

Raj grew up in Long Beach, CA in a house designed by Scott Fitzgerald of Killingsworth, Brady & Associates and graduated from Harvard-Westlake School.  He received his B.A. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and MBA in Brand Strategy from Columbia Business School.

Emily’s interest in modern Hawaiian architecture traces back to her childhood growing up in Palolo Valley. Her mother designed the family house to envelop the Alfred Preis interior that had been her father’s childhood home. This experience left her thinking architecture was a complicated and noisy endeavor, but college architectural history classes inspired her to become an architect anyway. She studied English at Williams College, completing an honors poetry collection thesis with Louise Gluck as advisor. Emily then earned a master’s degree in architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was also a teaching assistant for undergraduates and participated in international opportunities including the Beijing Urban Design Studio at Tsinghua University.

After leaving Massachusetts, Emily lived in a historic 1910 bungalow court in Pasadena, and later renovated an Art Deco apartment in Milwaukee. Along with shorter stints in New York City and San Francisco, these opportunities to live in a wide variety of geographies and neighborhoods gave her a deeper and more personal appreciation of different facets of urbanism. Now she is happy to be back home, where she is currently living in and renovating a 1960s house in Honolulu for her own family; the house was designed by Haydn Phillips, who worked as a contractor for Ossipoff and other notable Honolulu architects before going back to school to become an architect.

Emily is a licensed architect in the state of Hawaii, and is on the staff of Urban Works in Kaka’ako, where she is involved with educational and institutional design projects. 

Advisory Board member John Ike is a partner at Ike Kligerman Barkley, a New York City and San Francisco based architecture firm. He has been practicing architecture and design in New York City for over three decades. John travels widely, and his design aesthetic is influenced by the built legacy and regional inflections he sees on these trips, particularly the Italian and Scandinavian precedents. Before co-founding Ike Kligerman Barkley, John worked for Robert A.M. Stern, under whom he had studied for his Master of Architecture degree at the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University.  John received his Bachelor of Arts in biochemistry from Colorado College. He also has a particular interest in interior design, and has collaborated on the glass furniture line Chroma D with photographer Irene Mamiye. John is a father of three, as well as an avid hunter and fisherman. In his spare time, he works on his mid-century modern residences in New Jersey and San Diego.  

Advisory Board member Graham Hart is an architect and co-founder of Kokomo Studio, and teaches as a lecturer at the University of Hawaii School of Architecture. He also currently serves as Docomomo US Hawaii Chapter President and co-chaired the 2019 National Docomomo Symposium. Graham graduated from UH Manoa in 2015 with his Doctorate of Architecture. His dissertation was entitled Tropical Modern Residential Architecture: Elements, Vocabulary and Language, where he cataloged and researched modernism from around the tropics in over 300 pages of text and diagrams. His professional work varies from human scale to residential and commercial projects. His personal and academic research work focuses on mid-century architecture in the tropics, where Graham has documented forgotten modern gems and led restoration and education efforts for buildings of this period. Currently, between working his two jobs and running two nonprofit organizations, Graham is working on renovating his 1958 open-air apartment in Waikiki.

Melanie Ide is an architect who has worked for over 30 years in the cultural sphere as a museum planner, program developer, interpretive designer, and executive. 

Prior to her tenure as President & CEO of Bishop Museum in Honolulu, she was Principal at Ralph Appelbaum Associates, New York, the world’s largest interdisciplinary practice dedicated to the planning and design of museums and narrative environments. Typically working with organizations during periods of major transformation, growth, and change, she has advised leaders, led creative teams through multi-year initiatives, and designed award-winning projects for institutions such as the American Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the United States Capitol Visitor Center, the William J. Clinton Presidential Center, and the Obama Presidential Center.

Central to her practice is an alignment with missions that endeavor to turn hope into action, contribute to informed societies, and make positive change in the world. Her belief is that a shared vision, rooted by shared values, can motivate communities whether small or large. 

Melanie currently operates as an independent consultant and catalyst for bringing networks of talent and expertise to selected projects and initiatives. She lives in Honolulu and New York.​

Advisory Board member Cathy Liu lives in San Francisco and on the Big Island of Hawaii where she’s constantly inspired by the fragility and force of life.  She grew up in San Jose, studied in Florence, Italy and graduated from SJSU with a B.A. in Italian Studies. After five years of working for Mother Jones Magazine she focused exclusively on the exploratory work of painting. She’s been showing her work since 1996.  One of her paintings was included in the 2020 de Young Open exhibition.

Wendie McAllaster, ASLA, is a registered landscape architect and land use/environmental planner with nearly 40 years experience in Hawai‘i.  As a Principal with HHF Planners, she specializes in historic preservation planning and landscape architecture, with an emphasis on cultural landscapes.  Wendie has prepared numerous award-winning Cultural Landscape Reports and Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) reports, including for historic neighborhoods at Pearl Harbor, Keauhou Bay on Hawai‘i Island, and the Wake Island National Historic Landmark.

Wendie received her Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from Michigan State University and Graduate Certificates in Historic Preservation and Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Hawai‘i.  Active in the community, Wendie is currently on the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation Board, is a past-president of the Junior League of Honolulu, is a member of Docomomo and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and has served on the local boards of ASLA and APA.

For more than 25 years, Nicole has been a strategic and creative leader translating insights into immersive narratives. Her functional experience spans multi-disciplinary Creative Direction, Design Strategy, Storytelling, and Corporate Brand Marketing. She has been very successful building brand perception and awareness and upholding company reputation and loyalty.

As a team builder, she nurtures a strong sense of community and purpose—rallying troops, inspiring their passion and rigor to deliver impact. Recognized for her sound judgment and steady hand, she is considered a go-to partner, internally and externally.

Nicole currently serves as Executive Creative Director (ECD) of Intuit. She leads multidisciplinary creative teams to deliver cohesive end-to-end global brand and marketing experiences, galvanizing Inuit’s employees, customers, and shareholders around Intuit’s mission and vision. She is focused on creating brand experiences that are memorable,innovative, and that form true connections with internal and external audiences.

In addition, Nicole co-leads Intuit’s Design Community, aligning common priorities, shared tools, calibrating talent, and shaping and driving a shared vision for Design’s charter and priorities across all of Intuit’s business units.

Coming Soon!

Advisory Board Member Craig Steely is a California and Hawaii based architect. His buildings have been described as true and unique hybrids of these two environments. They embrace the realities of the environment and our separation/connection to it over the subjugation of it, all the while focusing on developing a singular architecture rooted in its context. Active projects include work in Hawaii, Mexico, as well as several along the coast of California—from Sea Ranch to San Francisco to Big Sur.

He received his architecture degree from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He has lectured at the University of Hawaii, the University of California at Berkeley, Cal Poly and at many conferences including the Monterey Design Conference. His work has been awarded recognition by the American Institute of Architects and published widely in books and periodicals. In 2009 he was selected as an “Emerging Talent” by the AIA California Council. His office was chosen the top firm in the 2013 Residential Architect Magazine leadership awards.

Advisory Board member Jean Yokoyama is a life-long supporter of the arts with a passion for painting landscapes and architecture.  Her work is shown and sold at venues and galleries throughout Honolulu. 

Jean graduated from Punahou School and attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She received her Bachelor of Education degree from the National College of Education in Evanston, Illinois and later attended Northwestern University to work on a master’s degree in art education. 

For many years, Jean lived in Captain Cook, on the Big Island of Hawai`i, with her husband Robert McDonald.  They owned a Kona coffee farm, Yokoyama McDonald Farms, and launched a coffee business where they marketed and sold their products, including a Kona Coffee concentrate, to Whole Foods. 

As owner of brokerage firm, J. Yokoyama Realty, from 1980 to 2017, Jean sold real estate and managed rental properties on the Big Island and O`ahu.  

Jean’s love of the arts has led her to serve as a board member for the Honolulu Symphony, Honolulu Theatre for Youth, Junior League of Honolulu, and as a docent for the Honolulu Museum of Art.

Coming soon! 

As Assistant Director of Liljestrand Foundation since 2018, and Executive Director since 2020, Kristi has been working to develop partnerships, public programming, fundraising capacity and communications strategies.

Kristi fell in love with mid-20th century architecture and design after a visit to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater while in middle school.   She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in photography from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, with a minor in Art History.  After working for renowned museum exhibition design firm Ralph Appelbaum Associates in New York for two years, Kristi moved to Hawai`i and spent over ten years with Girl Scouts of Hawai`i, building its fundraising infrastructure from the ground up.  As Director of Fund Development and then Director of Corporate Relations for the Girl Scouts, she oversaw annual giving, major gifts, partnership development, grants and fundraising events.

Kristi is currently enrolled in the Museum Studies Graduate Certificate Program at University of Hawai`i. 

Born in Hawai`i, Kristi grew up in Indiana, Missouri, Virginia and Pennsylvania. When she isn’t working at the most beautiful office in the world, Kristi can be found hiking or in the ocean with her family.

Trudy Couillard is the Facilities and Event Manager for Liljestrand Foundation. Over the years she has acquired an extensive, personal knowledge of the house and its history and has conducted countless tours for guests and visitors. On a daily basis she applies her attention to detail and an organizational hands-on approach to the operations of the house and grounds. On a personal level she knew architect Vladimir Ossipoff and lovingly cared for Dr. Howard and Betty Liljestrand before her passing in 1991 and his in 2004.

Trudy’s background includes broad experience assisting companies, non-profit groups, event planners, vendors and tradespeople with event proposals and facilitating the meetings, retreats, photo shoots, and special events that take place at the Liljestrand House. While she is the principal contact for all facilities management issues, her duties also include performing preventative building repairs and routine maintenance checks for this historical home.

Born and raised in Australia, Trudy enjoyed careers in both the fashion and design worlds before moving to Fiji, and then to Hawaii in 1988 to accept the position of Estate/House Manager for Liljestrand family. In time she took on additional roles as Dr. Liljestrand’s secretary and personal assistant while continuing to manage the house and estate.

In her spare time Trudy enjoys touring as many mid-century houses as she can; working out at the YMCA Nuuanu; and reading, gardening, and working on house and design projects.

Coming soon!