Post #621584 by GatorRob on Thu, Jan 19, 2012 3:22 PM

Just to add to the story regarding Carter's and OA, here are excerpts from emails Bob at OA sent me several years back. I've posted this in another thread before, but makes sense to post here. His mention of Jack is referring to Jack Thornton, co-founder of the Mai-Kai.

Robert H. Carter of Cargoes by Carter was perhaps the first importer of tropical decor and sold to Donn Beach and Victor Bergeron in the late 1940's. He was based in Whittier, CA and was a very small operation, selling Gift Ware as well as the basic tropical decor such as mattings, tapa cloths, and tikis's he had carved in Western Samoa.

LeRoy and I sold for him and carved 100's of Shields, Masks and Tiki Rail Posts for him to sell to restaurants. He later moved to Westwood, CA and we went full time expanding OA. He passed away during the late 1970's.

I think some of the figures and pieces were bought by Jack during his travels. Also many figures were carved by Demitrio Chavez for Carter who sold them to the Mai Kai. OA introduced Demitrio to Carter as we did not have the funds for carvings in the early days.

So to sum it up----OA did not carve any large tiki's for the Mai Kai. Once we introduced Demetrio to Carter, Carter had some masks made from the New Guinea museum designs from the book Oceanic Art. When Carter moved to WestWood OA had many more patterns carved by Demetrio.

Carter also got the job of carving the large Aku Aku stone figures for the Aku Aku at the Stardust in Las Vegas. He and Eli Hedley worked together on them along with Vince Buono.