Growing up in Los Angeles in survival mode, without a real sense of stability, John Reyno developed a habit of extreme resourcefulness. He took easily to tools, and he enjoyed breaking down and rebuilding things to figure out how they worked. Steadfast self-reliance and a love of good design, whether in the form of a well-made pair of pants or elegant architecture, would come to shape his destiny as a curator of mid-20th-century furniture.
In high school, Reyno favored metal shop and started working for a welding company his senior year. He took two days off after graduation—“the shortest summer break in history,” he laments—before committing the next 23 years, six days a week, to a full-time welding career. Reyno and his twin brother, Jeffrey, had been running Hitch Crafters in Orange County, a successful business designing custom trailer hitches, for more than a decade when he made the decision to hang up his torch in 2006, at age 40. “I was totally burned out,” he recalls. “I had seen a photo of this gorgeous Hawai‘i beach in a kitesurfing magazine years ago, and that was always in the back of my mind.” Reyno packed a shipping container full of household items and his burgeoning collection of mid-century-modern furniture and moved into a house near Kailua Beach on O‘ahu—the same stretch of coast from the picture.
Once you start putting those little feathers in your cap, they start to multiply, until you have a whole quiver of tools.
John Reyno, craftsman
Newly retired, Reyno devoted his time to kitesurfing and went full throttle on his hobby of tracking down mid-century-modern furniture, art, and decor. Finding a surprising number of pieces around the island, he quickly realized he had landed in a hotspot for his passion project. “Hawai‘i grew up in the ’50s and ’60s, when the airlines were bringing in all these jet-setters who moved here and happened to bring their furniture along,” he remarks. The distinctive style, with its shapely lines and minimalist forms, established a new paradigm of intelligent, efficient design. Produced from the 1940s through the late 1960s, the sleek, often playful pieces of the time reflected an industry shift toward human-centered design. As mid-century architects crossed over into furniture design, artful interiors that celebrated both form and function became emblematic of the era.
Reyno was drawn to designs from Danish craftsman Niels Otto Møller, architect-designer couple Charles and Ray Eames (best known for their iconic Eames chairs), and architect Walter Lamb, famous for his outdoor furniture line that incorporated metal alloy salvaged from sunken U.S. Navy ships at Pearl Harbor. Decades of exposure to the island’s tropical elements meant most of his finds needed major overhauls, but such specialized repair work was hard to come by. So Reyno began tackling restoration projects in his garage—keeping some for himself and selling the rest for pennies on the dollar.
With no playbook to follow, each weathered object presented a peculiar puzzle, an invitation for Reyno to apply the dogged trial-and-error problem-solving of his welding days. He might be elbow-deep in metalwork one day and sanding and stripping wood the next, or collaborating with other craftsmen in efforts to preserve original veneer. For especially tricky tasks, he’d call upon experts in leatherwork, stained glass, or upholstery, peering over their shoulders to expand his skillset. “Once you start putting those little feathers in your cap, they start to multiply, until you have a whole quiver of tools,” he adds.
As his painstaking efforts drew interest from fellow enthusiasts of mid-century-modern design, Reyno’s hobby quickly morphed into a legitimate buy, restore, and sell operation. Following a series of successful pop-up shops, Reyno registered the business as Hawaii Modern in 2017. Today, he works out of a shop in the Kaka‘ako area of Honolulu and showcases his treasures in the Kailua showroom he shares with his wife, Kristen, the designer behind local art and accessory brand Lola Pilar Hawai‘i.
On Reyno’s Instagram, @hawaii_modern, followers can view time-lapse videos of items in various stages of restoration and glean insights into his technical and creative process. In one post, Reyno is shown demolishing the warped Honduran mahogany top of a 1940s Walter Lamb bronze table, explaining that using woodworking joints known as tenons—never glue—on the newly fabricated teak top allows the table to be easily disassembled for future refinishing. Sometimes he uses the platform to divulge bits of history behind certain acquisitions—like the set of 1967 candy-shaped Pastil chairs from Finnish designer Eero Aarnio that “lived their life on a covered lanai overlooking the Pacific,” or the 1955 cushioned Walter Lamb lounge chair that once graced the Honolulu airport.
In an Instagram post from July 2025, Reyno can be seen weaving the paper-cord seat of a Niels Møller Model 78 dining chair as he recalls the time the designer’s granddaughter, Kirsten Møller, asked him to do a live weaving demonstration and address the crowd at a 2008 family birthday party. Apropos of his all-in attitude, the caption reads, “Whenever I say yes to the things that make my stomach turn and keep me up at night, I end up having the best memories and learn so much.”
