Hans Peter (H.P.) Faye (October 20, 1859 – August 28, 1928) was a Norwegian-born businessman who developed sugarcane plantations on west Kauai. Background Hans Peter Faye was born in 1859 in Drammen in Buskerud, Norway, when the country was in a personal union with Sweden. He started his business career in 1875 as clerk and bookkeeper at a Norwegian paper and pulp factory. Faye arrived on Kauai in the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1880. He leased land at Mana, Kauai from his uncle, Valdemar Knudsen, and settled there. After clearing the rocky plain at Mana of giant lava rocks, Faye obtained seed cane and planted his first sugar cane crop. Career In 1884, he founded the H.P. Fayé & Co. plantation and began well boring for water. In 1886, when Faye's first crop was ready for harvesting, he rented Chinese laborers to harvest the cane from Chinese immigrant Leong Pah On (1848–1924), known as Kauai's "Rice King". The cut cane was sent by bullock teams into Kekaha, several miles away, where it was processed at the sugar mill at Kekaha Plantation. At the turn of the 20th century, the now-defunct Waimea Sugar Mill Company was a publicly owned and traded company, and Faye began to purchase shares in it. By 1905, he was the President and largest stockholder of Waimea Sugar Mill Co. By 1915 or 1916, Faye owned the entire operation. In addition to operating his own businesses, in 1898 he helped merge three existing plantations into the Kekaha Sugar Company, and he became its first manager and Vice president, a position he held for thirty years, until his death in 1928. Faye drew up much of the designs for the Kekaha Plantation. It was initially seen as a shaky investment—with a need for great amounts of capital to build an infrastructure of canals, pumps, water systems, and other facilities needed to overcome its inherent physical disadvantages. These pioneering years were rough ones for the sugarcane growers who lacked an abundant water supply. As the sugarcane area increased, natural springs and intermittent streams proved inadequate, so wells were drilled. Most wells had been drilled too deep and at locations far too seaward. As a result, most wells became salty over time and were abandoned, buried and lost. As part of Kekaha Sugar's expansion program, three surface water diversions were constructed to address the failure of the well supply. In