The skinny on Obama's five-bedroom oceanfront Hawaii rental

We usually don’t write about rentals, but when the president-elect of the United States is staying in rented digs — as is the case right now in Hawaii — we are willing to make an exception.

It might seem that there is little left to write about the spread where Barack Obama and family are staying, but our initial digging shows that there’s actually still a fair amount about the president-elect’s property that has been little published (or omitted altogether from the stories that have been written about Obama’s rental). Here’s a quick rundown of what we know:

–The five-bedroom house is located at 55 Kailuana Place in Kailua in Honolulu County (on Oahu). Its owner is a fellow named Kevin Comcowich (apparently a portfolio manager from Houston) who indeed, as reported in many other places, paid exactly $9,000,000 for the house and 0.97-acre (42,403-square-foot) lot, back on January 15 (deed recorded on January 18).

–The single-story wood frame house measures either 4,846 square feet (according to public records) or 5,200 square feet (according to news accounts), and has five and a half baths, a gourmet kitchen, a weight room and wireless Internet, according to listing information. Features on the property include a lava rock pool and hot tub and eight waterfalls, according to news accounts.

–The good people over at The Smoking Gun have rescued the now-removed online listing sheet for the house at 55 Kailuana.

–Redone in 2005, the house is on a dead-end street (near the end of Kailuana Place) and is part of the Harold K.L. Castle estate. Castle developed much of Kailua, and his heirs sold the house in 2003 to Paul Sullivan. Sullivan then sold it for $9,000,000 in January to Comcowich. (Sullivan actually had had the property on the market for $11.9 million last year.) Castle built the house either in 1934 (according to a Huffington Post article) or in 1946 (according to a Honolulu Advertiser article).

–The house apparently has been rented for $2,500 to $3,500 a day in the past. Obama probably can afford that just fine, given that he’s in the process of getting himself a substantial raise to $400,000 a year!

–Check out a terrific Honolulu Advertiser article on the house from last year.

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