PRINCIPAL DESIGNER

Having earned a B.A. in Studio Art and B.S. in Ecology from UC Santa Barbara as an undergraduate, Dominic has always been passionate about combining nature and art. He found the perfect professional niche in landscape design and earned his Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University, where he was bestowed the Peter Walker Fellowship upon graduation for excellence in design.

After graduation, Dominic held a variety of landscape design roles in professional offices. He also traveled to France where he worked at the Chateau de Courances and gained experience at these historic gardens in both regenerative landscape architectural and land management practices.

This experience, in addition to owning and operating his own forest farm in Ka’u, allows Dominic to bring professional competencies in both high-level landscape design and boots-on-the-ground land sculpting to Hawai’i Land & Garden Works. At his forest farm, Dominic is passionate about native reforestation and creative reuse of non-native trees, including wood chipping and sawmilling applications.

HORTICULTURAL SPECIALIST

JJ Cook Tripp has over 20 years of experience as a horticulturalist here on Hawai’i Island, including work in the agricultural, ornamental, and native plant sectors. His rich background includes vanilla & coffee farming, native Hawaiian plant propagation, nursery operations, and Korean Natural Farming practices. JJ has been a contributing team member at the Joseph Rock Arboretum in Kailua-Kona (where he and Dominic met working together!) where he has been gaining experience in native seed banking.

JJ, with his wife Wai’ala and son Kupuohi, own and operate Misty Mountain Homstead in Ka’u. As a part of their homestead, JJ and his family have a botanical dying studio - the construction of which was featured on an episode of the popular TV show Homestead Rescue! In addition to their home studio, JJ and Wai’ala teach botanical dying classes at Donkey Mill Art Center in Kona (also a land managment client of Hawai’i Landscape and Planning!).

Outside of horticulture, JJ is a prolific guitarist, pianist, and vocalist, as well as a whittler and wood craftsman.

ADVISORY HISTORIAN

Kainoahemolele Tabar holds a BA in Journalism and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Hawai’i. A multidisciplinary artist, Tabar has held membership in four halau, encompassing decades of hula practice. He has carved and pyrographed countless Ohe Hanu Ihu and Ipu. He paints nature motifs from his home and travels alike. He is schooled on the island Maui in Pi’iholo; he cultivates Hu’e Ipu with traditional planting methods to harvest and mold into useful forms.

As Advisory Historian, Tabar draws upon his own rich creative practices and his vested interest in seeking & keeping Hawaiian histories. In this, Tabar supports the work of Hawai’i Land & Garden Works by performing the necessary research and contextualization behind our projects. Ultimately, this work is to celebrate and elevate the richness of the building techniques and materials with which we work, adding a deeper layer of significance and meaning to our signature pieces.

He has written countless Haiku articulating the nature and state of present-day Hawai’i nei.