Faye Family Museum - Activities On Kauai Waimea, Hawaii

The Faye Family Museum can be found at the Waimea Plantation Cottages and is named after Hans Peter Faye. This single room museum contains various photographs and exhibits that follow the life of of Faye and the sugar industry he helped create.

Faye, originally a clerk and bookkeeper from Norway, arrived on Kauai in 1880 where he leased land from his uncle and planted sugar cane. In 1884 he founded the H.P. Faye & Co plantation and harvested his first crop in 1886 using Chinese laborers from Leong Pah On who was known as Kauai's "Rice King".

The crop was processed at the Kekaha Plantation. With bigger ambitions in the sugar industry, Faye began using his earnings to buy shares in the Waimea Sugar Mill Company. By 1905 he was the largest stockholder in the company and also the President. By 1916 he owned the entire operation and died in 1928.

In 1950, the Waimea Sugar Mill Company was reorganized into the Kikiaola Land Company and Waimea Sugar Mill, Inc. The Kikiaola Land Company focused on property and land management while the Waimea Sugar Mill, Inc continued to raise cane sugar. As the Kauai sugar industry faded, around 1969, the Faye family kept title to their land but sold off the sugar operations to Kekaha Sugar Company.