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Article: Starting small. (David Fukumoto's Fuku-Bonsai Center)
- Article from:
- Hawaii Business
- Article date:
- November 1, 1991
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 Hawaii Business Publishing Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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GREEN played cruel tricks on David Fukumoto. The color permeated his Kurtis-town nursery and the dark hills above Kona where he hoped to create the world's first international bonsai center--everywhere, it seemed, except the responses of the half-dozen bankers who refused to proffer the needed greenbacks. "No bank would lend us money for a project that had no precedent," Fukumoto recalls. "They kept asking, 'What is the success record of other international bonsai centers?' When they asked that, we didn't have a chance in hell."
Fukumoto might say the heavens intervened. The Fuku-Bonsai Center with its gardens and gift shop on a hillside in Holualoa is still shunned ...