“All developers sort of possess that similar sense of invincibility."

Martin Kaufman profiles developer Lyle Anderson, who is remarkably frank about the project--Hokuli’a on Hawaii’s Kona Coast--that essentially brought his empire down, and also reports that the mastermind behind Desert Highlands, Desert Mountain and Loch Lomond is putting together financing for an "eco-friendly" development in Scottsdale.

Anderson says Hokuli’a was “outselling the market 2 to 1” when it launched in the late 1990s.

Hokuli’a was more than just another development to Anderson. Kizziar says the developer had a “spiritual involvement” with the land, immersing himself in the native Hawaiians’ history and traditions. There were numerous burial sites on the property, and Kizziar says Anderson made sure descendants had access to those sites, even building lava rock walls around some of them.

Then came a lawsuit from Kona residents claiming that the property, which was zoned as agricultural land, needed to be reclassified as urban land, a process that can take years. In 2003, more than five years after Anderson secured zoning permits to build Hokuli’a, state Circuit Court Judge Ronald Ibarra sided with the residents and ordered a halt to development.

By that time, according to the ruling, Hokuli’a already had sold 190 lots and poured $136 million into developing the site.

In 2006, Ibarra approved a settlement of the lawsuit, but the damage had been done.

“We won, but really (the activists) won because they took six years of the greatest market we ever had and we were (left) on the bench,” Anderson says. “That really hurt. It certainly ran up my debts with the bank. That was a difficult thing.”