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"View Slideshow\n\nOf all the Hawaiian islands, Kauai seems to draw especially passionate admirers\u2014visitors and residents alike\u2014who cherish its cloud-tumbled skies and sweet misty rains, its sculptural hills and dense tropical verdure, its rural character that has been preserved\u2014at least up to now\u2014by fairly limited development. Less often do you hear people talk about the island's cache of art galleries and shops\u2014but that may be because you haven't been listening to designers Illya Hendrix and Thomas Allardyce. Hendrix and Allardyce are longtime Hawaiiphiles. Several years ago, after vacationing on Oahu for eight years, they bought a place on Kauai and turned it into an Edenic retreat that every month or so offers them soothing respite from their busy Los Angeles lives (see Architectural Digest, September 2004). In the process of designing their own house, and in working on another project on the island, the pair have spent enough time sleuthing around Kauai to come to an understanding of the aesthetic that best suits life in Hawaii.\n\n\"Decoratively speaking, Hawaii is a refreshing mixture of cultures,\" says Allardyce. \"You've got Japanese, Chinese, Philippine and Western influences. You've got a love of intense, saturated color, especially in the textiles. You've got a lot of durable building materials, such as bamboo in many forms and a variety of interesting woods. And, of course, there's all that slightly kitschy but often quite witty Hawaiiana. Many of us got our first ideas about what Hawaii was like from a dancing girl wired up as a lamp.\"\n\n\"We're constantly on the lookout for stylish porch furniture, and Britt's is it.\"\n\nWhen Hendrix and Allardyce want a touch of just this kind of Hawaiiana to add drollery to their island interiors, they like to see what Margaret Benton has tucked away at Yellowfish Trading Co., her shop in Hanalei, which specializes in Hawaiiana and collectibles. \"Margaret has a wonderful eye for decorative arts,\" Hendrix says. Painted guitars, McCoy pottery, tropical textiles\u2014even dancing girls wired up as lamps\u2014proliferate in Benton's cozy shop. \"Her things may often be brought in from the mainland, but she has chosen pieces that look like they've always been here,\" notes Allardyce, who has used her island prints on throw pillows and to cover the seat of a side chair.\n\nAt the Kong Lung Center, a complex of like-minded shops in Kiluea, Hendrix and Allardyce visit Coconut Style for the hand-painted textiles designed and sold by owner Mark Stroh, whose bed linens, shirts and sarongs \"are perfectly at home anywhere on the island,\" says Allardyce. Stroh also imports Balinese furniture, architectural elements, artifacts and wood containers. Some pieces are antique; others are made out of teak, merbau, sugar wood or\u2014yes\u2014the trunk of a coconut tree.\n\nThe designers have used Stroh's low tables in their interiors. They like them for their chunky proportions and the impeccable quality of their craftsmanship.\n\nTsajon and Kamalia von Lixfeld's Lotus Gallery, which is also in the Kong Lung Center, is another source Hendrix and Allardyce turn to for imported Indonesian decorative materials\u2014not only furniture but also stone and bronze sculptures, fountains, carvings and cachepots. Kamalia, who is a jeweler, and Tsajon, an appraiser and gemologist, bring connoisseurship to their merchandise, which includes antique painted scrolls, silk carpets and Kamalia von Lixfeld's own gold jewelry.\n\n\"I absolutely love Chinese furniture. It fits in any style of house.\"\n\nArtist Douglas Britt is one of the designers' favorite discoveries. A painter and sculptor who makes whimsical pieces out of salvaged materials, some of which he finds washed up on local beaches, Britt first came to Hendrix and Allardyce's attention when they were given one of his witty works as a housewarming gift: a boat made out of leftover bits and pieces, including croquet mallets, kitchen gadgets, ironing board fragments and driftwood. \"We simply fell in love with it\u2014and with his work,\" says Hendrix. Britt also designs and fabricates modern furniture, which, along with his other works, is available at Ola's, the gallery in Hanalei he co-owns with his wife, Sharon. The pieces are ideal for porches and verandas. \"We're constantly on the lookout for stylish porch furniture, and Britt's is it,\" explains Allardyce.\n\nTwo other Hendrix and Allardyce sources are also neighbors, in this case in the Kauai Design Center in Kapaa. For Asia Gallery, Jane and Peter McClaran import architectural elements, antique and reproduction furniture, and blue-and-white and celadon pottery from Shanghai.\n\n\"I absolutely love Chinese furniture,\" says Allardyce. \"It's primitive and simple in form. It fits in any style of house\u2014it's one of the styles that can be used universally. And on the islands it's particularly appropriate, because of its durability in the often damp climate.\" Both Hendrix and Allardyce feel that Chinese furniture is still underappreciated today. The antique pieces have a muscularity that helps anchor interiors, even in new houses. \"We've used their pieces in our own home and in those of our clients,\" says Allardyce.\n\nThe McClarans' neighbor Julian Brook runs an indispensable shop, Bamboo Works, for which he imports the kind of building products that are always useful, always handsome and always in vogue. He carries bamboo paneling for walls and floors; curtain rods, trellises and fencing; bamboo ladders; bamboo matting; and bamboo poles to put to practical use in the garden or to decorative use, the way Hendrix and Allardyce have in their own house, as sculptural elements arranged artfully in large jars.\n\n\"Julian's array of materials is amazing,\" remarks Allardyce. \"Bamboo holds up beautifully in the local weather.\" (Among the other materials Brook has on hand are sea grass, elephant grass, coconut fiber, sisal and thatching.)\n\nThe designers love Jungle Girl, also in Kapaa, for decorative accessories\u2014and for the chance to see, up close, a plantation- style cottage that was built in 1935. Owners Cynde and Pete Pangas specialize in handmade items from Indonesia. Hendrix and Allardyce like to use their painted wood fruit, baskets, carvings, pedestal dishes, bowls and other containers to detail a room. The Pangases' selection of masks, from Bali, Java, Lombok, Madura and elsewhere, add punch and drama to a wide range of interiors. \"More than that, they have a spiritual quality that seems very fitting on Kauai,\" says Allardyce. \"This is an old island, and it's nice for its houses to be full of history, full of beauty and full of spirits too\u2014when you can find them.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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