Post #15911 by woofmutt on Tue, Dec 10, 2002 10:00 AM

In Auburn Washington, a town about 24 miles south of Seattle.

The Kona Kai complex is plain, it's the 8 or so large Tikis decorating the property that makes one hit the brakes when driving by. The Tikis are pole type, the images carved into the polls and not fully figural. I'd guess they're carved from cedar logs. The style of the carving is somewhat cartoonish. Most the Tikis range in height from 4 to 10 feet, and vary in thickness. The king of these Tikis is a big open mouthed fellow that is about 2 stories tall. The log he's carved from was inverted so the wide base makes the top of his head, similar to the palm tree Tikis that have roots for "hair". All the Tikis are in great shape with surprisingly little sign of rot.

Hoping to get some history I stopped in at the manager's office. I explained my interest in the architecture. He told me th Kona Kai was built in the early 60's, he had no idea who carved the Tikis. Then he added, "There's a cabana room that has some stuff in it, too." Would I be able to look in a window? "My wife and grand daughter are over there now baking Christmas cookies, I'll show you."

The Cabana Room is a building about the size of a small house. It has a central A-frame room with a 2 story peak and two large rooms off each side of the A-frame. It once sat at the edge of a figure 8 shaped pool which was filled in some time ago and planted (the pool's stone border and surrounding patio remain, as does a pile of fiberglass lounge furniture).

Inside the A-frame ceiling is completely lined in reed and trimmed with timber bamboo. The walls are paneled.

A customized outrigger canoe hangs from the peak of the ceiling as do several strings of small glass and cork floats in fishnet.

The room to the south of the A-frame is plain, paneling with a couple generic primitive art pieces on the walls. The room to the north has a large fireplace made of basalt taking up most of the north wall. The walls are alternating panels of woven mat and tapas cloth trimmed in bamboo. On every other panel hang New Guinean style masks, starfish, etc. There's bent cane sectional furniture with original flowered upholstery all over the complex.

The whole Cabana Room is in excellent shape, nothing torn down, painted over, or remodeled. The reason for the pristine quality is that it's never used. The current managers have ran the Kona Kai for 12 years and when they moved in they said the Cabana Room hadn't been used in 10 years. They cleaned it up but soon found that the residents that wanted to use it didn't want to clean up after themselves. So they keep it closed and mostly use it for a once a year cookie and candy making marathon (15 family members and a mountain of ingredients). They've never even had a Hawaiian themed party in it.

From what I've seen in my searches for Tiki the Kona Kai Apartments is one of the 3 best preserved Polynesian style places in the Pacific Northwest (the two main ones being the Alibi and the Jasmine Tree in Portland, Oregon).

[ Edited by: woofmutt 2012-06-18 12:23 ]