by Alan Smart

As a kid, I always liked Disney's Tiki Room and Adventureland, and I really enjoyed a Hawaii trip I took with my family.   About fifteen years ago I started going regularly to swap meets and antique stores, looking for stuff to decorate my house.   One of the things I was consistently drawn to was all the cool Hawaiiana. I decided to build a tiki bar/ room to give me an excuse to buy some of the neat stuff I found.

Once I decided that I was really going to build a tiki room, I started buying any good tikis, glass floats, surfing pictures, etc that I found. I was pretty selective. Each thing had to have something to do with tiki, Hawaiiana, surfing, or the beach. I also wanted stuff to either be vintage, or look like it could be from a time gone by. I think if you start adding things that don't relate, it will look junky.

It took me about ten years of hunting to get all the stuff. There isn't one particular item that like the best.   I kind of like everything altogether as a whole. The only thing that I would love to have is a severed head mug from Ren Clark's Polynesian Village, but they are rare and expensive.

I stored all the items in the future site of the bar, a very large, unfinished basement. Basements are pretty rare in Los Angeles, but since I am on a big hill, I guess the space was there. It worked out very well. There are different floor levels, and posts (holding up the house) that I think add interest. It is a good size, too. It feels bigger than I thought it would, and I still have more basement to spare.

I did do some drawings to figure out how the main features would work. I pored over Sven Kirsten's first "Book Of Tiki". I must have studied every picture about twenty-five times in that book. To me tiki refers to the feeling of the islands.   What I like best about Tiki is the stylized imagery of Polynesia popularized in the 50's and 60's. Tiki tOny is my favorite Tiki artist of today. I have many of his cocktail mugs, and he carved a post and some skull poles in my Tiki bar. He is also a real swell guy.

I took many field trips with my partner Michael Uhlenkott, who is an excellent artist. He has been a big fan of tiki and Polynesia, etc since the 70's. We went to every tiki themed bar and restaurant we could find, making inspirational sketches of any cool ideas that we might appropriate.

Michael Uhlenkott with some tappa paper that he made.

The most difficult part for me was figuring out the lighting. I wanted to have lots of colorful dim lights all over. It's very hard to tell an electrician where you want the lights, when you have a blank room!

One of the things that I am particularly happy with, is the way the actual bar turned out.   Many friends chipped in to help.   Jon Bok   put the rattan design along the front and sides of the bar. He hammered rusty tin cans around the bar's edge, and poured resin on the top. Michael Uhlenkott designed these wonderful tiki tiles that go down the center of the bar, and my tile artist friend, Diana Mauser (Native Tile), made them.

It is used fairly often. We have small get-togethers every other week or so. I have friends who threaten to come over every week! They don't care if I am there or not- they say that I can just leave a key out for them! We don't hang out in the room though, unless friends are over.

Want a Tiki Room of your own?

Any kind of bamboo, rattan, woven mat, tap-pa cloth that you could want is available at Oceanic Arts in Whittier. They have been suppling bars, restaurants, movies, and luau parties with tiki paraphernalia since the 50's. They are fantastic! And remember - fruity sweet drinks cause bigger hangovers than less sugary drinks.

©2007 Moore Studios, Inc
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photos by Edmund Barr

Conceptual sketch for the tiki room by Alan Smart

Bar tiles designed by Michael Uhlenkott and created by Diane Mauser