If ever there were a palace built for legitimate surfing royalty, it would have to be one the Duke himself once called home. And fewer things would be cooler than giving your friends their first tour of a new pad with an opportunity to casually namedrop “oh yeah, Duke lived here.” That’s the bright future of whoever buys this obnoxiously awesome Oahu home that recently dropped onto the market.
Since 1999, executive vice president and global creative director of NIKE, Gordon Thompson has lived here. He came to Hawaii, bought the house and remodeled it into the MTV Cribs worthy pad we see today. But in the process he made sure to hold onto its surf heritage roots. The original foundation was left intact and the fir staircase and handrails were restored. But the coolest marks of Duke are in his handprints that are fixed in stone along the yard and a tree that still stands today, originally given to Kahanamoku as a gift from the Emperor of Japan. It’s 3,935-square-feet of surfing history in Diamond Head, and that’s pretty darn cool to say the least. Cool enough to run you a fresh $8,875,000 to be exact.
