Post #451768 by bigbrotiki on Mon, May 4, 2009 10:52 PM

Here's the link to the article:

http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200905040300/NEWS05/905040316

"Owners want to de-tiki the old Tiki Spa hotel"
STEFANIE FRITH • THE DESERT SUN • MAY 4, 2009

I appreciate the sentiment, but she's a little late to the funeral. That poor ruin has been de-tikied many many years ago. Where was the press coverage in the early 2000s, when the place was stripped of its last elements of Tiki style, when the outrigger beams were sawed off and the rock walls were torn down?

"The once kitschy Tiki Spa hotel in Palm Springs now sits vacant and boarded up."
And why-oh-why can't the press mention Tiki once without using "kitschy" as the descriptive adjective ? Sigh.

Thank you Rory for the post, allow me to ad a little additional info:

This is how the place looked when I discovered it in 1992:

Any place with the name "Tiki" was gold to me, and so the cool sign made it int the BOT:

Best of all, it still had a very unique Tiki standing guard outside:

And when I discovered these photos at Oceanic Arts...

..it seemed obvious that I had come upon a rare specimen of a carving by Bob Lutz (pictured)
(Recently though I was informed that someone contacted Bob and Leroy claiming these Tikis were not Lutz's work, I will have to look into this). On a little side note, the riddle of the location of the above photos (the sign seems to read "Mai-Tai Room") was never solved.

But back to the Tiki Spa. If you notice the pink and white paint job on the buildings, it becomes clear that by 1992 the 80s had done their dastardly job, and viewing the photo and description from their last brochure below:

demonstrates that very little of the original decor had survived, besides the elements I photographed above. Nevertheless, it was a tranquil mom & pop place still. Jeff and Aneene Berry stayed there during the first Tiki Oasis event in 2001.

So how did it end up like this?:

The original owners had died,

...and one of the daughters took the job of running the place. Unfortunately she was mentally handicapped and did not notice that the rooms were taken over by crack heads and their dealers. The early 90s was a depressed era for Palm Springs, mid-century modernism had not been re-discovered yet, and business was slow. By the early 2000s, the daughter had to give up the business, and the son, now a lawyer in San Diego, wanted to have no part of it. Oblivious to the emerging Tiki revival, he let some contractor wreck the place by removing the Tiki elements mentioned above in hopes it would look less "dated". Then he just let it sit there.

I used to drive by there whenever I came to Palm Springs, it was always surrounded by a chain link fence. Now a month ago or so, I did my regular drive by, and the fence was gone. Being aware that Tiki ruins hold their own special mystique, I decided to explore. This is what I found:

The waterfall was gone, but the moat around the main lobby was still there. So was some nautical rope around the pylons, and a rockwall:

The whole place was completely boarded up, even the side courtyards

Everything was out of service

The paint was peeling

and the jacuzzi was de-tiled

Nearby, I was thrilled to find remnants of what once must have been a huge Tiki

All that was left were its eyes, which once sat on the sides of the carving. With the help of cell phone technology, I quickly summoned some local/visiting urban archeologists

All were in awe of the relics

But imagine my surprise when I discovered HIM !!!

He had disappeared from the front years ago, and I had long given up on him.
Something had to be done...

Well, to make a long story short, a ride was arranged

and this precious artifact was rescued from its unappreciative surroundings.

Elvis had left the building. Rest in peace, Tiki Spa, you will be remembered.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2009-05-04 22:56 ]