LAHAINA — Former Golden State Warriors coach Don Nelson has spent much of the past week on the phone, working to give his short-term Maui rentals to people who lost their houses in the nation’s deadliest wildfires in more than a century.
“We’re doing the best we can, but we only have space for about 24 people,” Nelson said in a phone interview Monday. “There are thousands of people homeless right now. It’s overwhelming.”
In 2011, shortly after settling in West Maui full-time following a Hall of Fame coaching career, Nelson started to invest in local real estate. What started as a side gig has blossomed into a thriving rental company. Desperate to help evacuees from the recent wildfires that devastated Lahaina and other nearby communities, Nelson, 83, has leased his properties for free to anyone in need.
In doing so, he heard stories that keep him awake at night. Families who fled barefoot, with only a belonging or two in hand, as the fast-moving flames engulfed their homes. Residents who have sent DNA samples of loved ones to police so their late relatives can be identified. A firefighter in the hospital for smoke inhalation for a few weeks, who will move into a trailer home Nelson owns with his wife, Joy, once he’s released.
Helping provides Nelson some peace. None of his properties, including the family home he bought 24 miles south of Lahaina almost 30 years ago, were damaged in the wildfires.
But even though Nelson didn’t lose a house or loved one in a natural disaster that as of Monday afternoon had killed almost 100 people and destroyed more than 2,200 structures, he feels a profound grief. Maui is his chosen home. As a player for the Boston Celtics in the 1960s and ’70s, he would vacation in Hawaii on his way back from charity tours in Vietnam.
Week-long visits lasted two or three weeks when Nelson purposely missed his departing flights. While coaching the Warriors in 1995, he bought that vacation home along the white-sand beaches of Kihei. A decade and a half later, after winning a then-NBA record 1,335 games over a 31-year career that spanned four teams and two stints with Golden State, Nelson made the Kihei property his primary residence.
Maui’s friendly locals and slower-paced lifestyle allowed him to relax. Finally, after revolutionizing the NBA with small lineups and unleashing numerous sideline tirades, Nelson could golf several times a week and whale-watch from his backyard.
His high-stakes poker games with fellow Maui residents Willie Nelson, Woody Harrelson and Owen Wilson have become the stuff of local legend. These days, Nelson grows and smokes marijuana from his farm, which he cultivates along with flowers and coffee.
“It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been to, and I think it’s the most beautiful place in the world,” Nelson said of Maui. “I haven’t really left in eight years. Why would I? Life is so good here.”
Last Tuesday, after a couple days of ominous alerts from the National Weather Service in Honolulu, Nelson’s island paradise was next to a disaster zone. Strong winds from Hurricane Dora combined with low humidity to stoke a fire that began on a slope just east of the highway that bypasses downtown Lahaina.
Within hours, the historic town of 12,000 was largely destroyed. Some residents fled into the Pacific Ocean to avoid what they described to reporters as a “total inferno.” Six days later, as the list of casualties grows longer, the Maui wildfires are the nation’s deadliest blaze since a fire in northeast Minnesota killed hundreds of people in 1918.
With the government struggling to meet evacuees’ needs, local volunteers have mobilized in droves. Nelson’s daughter, Lee Anderson, converted the Kihei wedding venue she runs into a distribution center for essential goods. Joy has spent much of her time there, handing out meals to the homeless, stacking Amazon packages and calling nearby shelters.
Whenever a spot comes open at one of the family’s rental properties, the Nelsons fill it quickly. Chris Fontian, one of Nelson’s daughters who was visiting from Chicago when the fires started, has helped clean the rental units for new guests. When someone needs a ride, Don and Joy try to drive them — even if gasoline can be hard to find in certain parts of Maui these days.
Chaos has left little time for reflection. Though Nelson hadn’t visited Lahaina much in recent years, he has fond memories of eating at Longhi’s Restaurant — an Italian-food staple on Front Street that Nelson’s late friend, Bob Longhi, opened in 1976. A minority owner for the Warriors when Nelson was their coach, Longhi was an active member of the Lahaina community when he died at 79 of a heart attack 11 years ago.
Longhi’s old restaurant and family home, where Chris got married, burned down in the fires. So did the house of one of Joy’s friends from her canoeing club.
“A lot of people are still in shock,” Joy said. “They’ve been traumatized.”
Joy leaves Tuesday for a doctor’s appointment on Oahu. Given all of Maui’s current fire-related travel challenges, she worries that she might have trouble returning home.
What Joy and her husband do know is that they plan to live in Kihei the rest of their lives. If anything, the fires have only strengthened their love for Maui and its people.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Nelson said. “This is home. Right now, it needs all our help.”
