Post #79685 by laney on Sun, Mar 7, 2004 4:43 AM

This house is about a block from my parents house. The lady who lives there is very nice, she used to call me "little bo peep" because I used to walk my lamb past her house on my way to the horse trails. I could see parts of a giant clam shell and a tiki hut from the trail and always wondered what was behind this unassumimg (no tiki in the front) house. The yard has been this way as long as I can remember. I finally got the nerve to knock on her door and ask to take some pictures. I reminded her who I was and she asked how my Mom was doing and talked about my siblings. She couldn't believe I was old enough to have Nick. After some small talk she said "Sure!"
Wow! As my son put it "This is my dream backyard!" I was in AWE!
Like anyone who has taken pictures at OA or any tiki bar, the pictures don't do this place justice. I don't use my digital camera for more than e-bay or posting things here so I don't have a card. I missed taking pics of about 15 other tikis and carvings on the sides of buildings and littered throughout the paths. There were vintage glass floats all over the ground and hanging on the back fence of the yard too!
Here's some pics (as many as my camera would allow and some didn't turn out)

keep in mind these structures are not part of the house. I asked her what was in the A frame and she said, "Oh, thats the Polynesian room, it's filled with all sorts of stuff, there's even a kitchen in there, but it's kind of a mess right now" I didn't want to bother her too much as her husbands health is failing, I think from a stroke.


there were tikis and shields leaning all over the place! OH! That bird is hooked up to a gas line to make a flame!

here's the bathrooms, and see the boat, she said she used to serve food from that at parties.

here's the lath, the waterfall goes into the pool and down the other side to wind through paths and little bridges.

Um, we're talking 30'+ tikis here!

my son, Nick, is standing on one of the little bridges.

this was pretty much the scene inside the lath, tikis everywhere, you can't see the glass floats on the ground EVERYWHERE! and there were several of the "big head" tikis (like the Simpson's) I just didn't get a picture of.

every support post was carved!



here's a little balcony (the back side can be seen from the horse trail)My 8 year old could fit in that clam shell.

the other side of the balcony.

See the anchor and mask?

a little nook with shells, shark jaws, and ships parts.
The other side of the yard had a pool slide, and even a small aviary (I think it was empty)
Like I said, I missed a lot of photo ops and wished I could see into that A frame, I didn't even look into the bathrooms because I didn't want to be pushy. I will drop her a note of thanks and ask to see it again some time but I know she is having a hard time right now with her husbands illness. She said "Oh, you can get these carvings in Whittier, at Ocianic Arts." I wonder if she knows how expensive a set up like that would be now. She said she's always loved it (DAMN) and it's great for luaus, now for the grandkids. She also said she does her best to keep it up, having the tikis painted and even the bird's paint was recently touched up. I asked her if she got many requests from people to take pictures and she said "No, none."
There is another house a few houses down drom my parents with some tikis in the front yard I will photograph next week.
I hope you enjoyed this hidden paradise, man, I did!

[ Edited by: laney on 2004-03-07 04:47 ]

[ Edited by: laney on 2004-03-07 04:53 ]