Big Island tree house more than a honeymoon hideaway

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When marine biologists Cawa Tran, 33, of Menlo Park and David Kainoa Simmons, 32, of St. Augustine, Fla., started planning their wedding, Hawaii seemed the obvious choice. Simmons still had family on Oahu, where he grew up, and the couple had met in Honolulu in 2010, before she headed off to Stanford for a postdoc and he to Florida to finish his doctorate.

But exactly where to get hitched in Hawaii took some deliberation. Simmons had fond memories of childhood vacations on the Big Island, calling it “the most beautiful island, especially on top of Kilauea, with the volcano and rain forest,” and began searching online. Mahinui Na Lani, a romantic Volcano tree house for two with optional wedding services in a nearby Balinese-style pavilion, caught his eye.

“It’s just beautiful,” he said last month while on honeymoon there with Tran, who heartily agreed.

“The reality exceeded the photos,” she added. “We were expecting it to be unique and wonderful and memorable, but this is truly magical and surreal. We have even talked about coming back for an anniversary.”

They should probably book now. Thanks to rave online reviews, including an early endorsement by TripAdvisor, occupancy rates are more than 90 percent, according to co-owner Gail Armand. A Marin native and 1972 Cal alumna, Armand and husband, Robert van Sluis, opened the sustainably built, custom-designed Mahinui Na Lani (“The Beautiful Sky”) tree house in early 2010, followed by a wedding pavilion near their Volcano residence shortly afterward.

The couple had bought the Volcano house as a potential retirement home in the late ’90s, and were still living and working in California — Armand in insurance fraud detection, van Sluis in medical device sales — when they had an impromptu wedding on the island in 2003. But after the 2008 economic downturn, when van Sluis lost his job and their house in Hercules wouldn’t sell, their retirement outlook changed.

“We had a plan, which switched from ‘We’ll just live a life of ease in Volcano’ to ‘Let’s have a wedding business,’” Armand explained. “When we got married here, it was incredibly spur of the moment and romantic, and our friends who we thought would think it was ho-hum were all, ‘I wish I could do that!’ So we came up with the Rainforest Weddings business and had the tree house and pavilion built.”

Working with celebrity tree house designer Roderick Romero and Big Island bamboo expert Bobby Grimes, the couple created an orchid-fringed oasis with a cozy loft bedroom, reached by a narrow ladder; an outdoor shower and sunken cedar hot tub, both drawing on rainwater; a compact kitchen with mango wood counter; and charming touches such as hexagonal windows and stained glass panels of native birds and tropical plants by a local artist.

“We envisioned we would have this wedding business that would take off like crazy, and the tree house would just draw the people who we married and a few random people who wanted to stay there,” Armand recalled. “The reality is that the tree house captured the imagination of all kinds of people, and it got a lot of media attention early on.”

Now their Rainforest Weddings business is “gradually picking up,” Armand said, with “dozens and dozens” of marriages and commitment ceremonies already under their belt. Their wedding packages start at $2,500, including a two-night stay in the tree house or main house, a celebrant, lei exchange, toast, music and photography, with dinner and other options available.

The 18 guests at Tran and Simmons’ wedding were “just as mesmerized as we were,” noted Tran, who appreciated Armand’s and van Sluis’ personal approach as much as the honeymoon hideaway.

“Gail and Robert are just so wonderful in the setting and ambience they’ve created,” said Tran. “The food and flower arrangements were so beautiful. We could tell that the love they share between them — and for this place — that really went into everything, from the start to the end.”

Mahinui Na Lani Treehouse and Rainforest Weddings: Volcano, Hawaii Island. (510) 965-7367, www.mahinui.com. Tree house from $265 a night ($275 with breakfast supplies). Wedding packages from $2,500, including two-night stay.