Tiki Fountains

Check these out!

The one on the left was not a fountain. The owner of the nursery said they were carved by R L Blair and that he did some carvings for Disneyland???.......

Is that place on the PCH near Malibu?

[ Edited by: Rob Roy 2005-12-07 13:21 ]

Me like, will have to try oe. Look easy to do.

Excellent photos, Bongofury,

Do the tikis stilll exist?

Cool pics. Fountains are a cool occupation for a tiki :)

Cool-a-mundo!

Looking at them, at first I thought they were stucco or lathed, and made to conceal filter or pump apparatus...which wouldn't be a bad idea(r)

Thanks for posting.

Whooa, that guy is bringin some heat! Love that first one. From the looks of them, R.L. Blair could be Mary Blair's husband. Mary Blair designed Its a Small World.

Those are flippin' amazing. I really like the style of them.

Great pictures. Thank you for posting them.

Leave it to Ron to pull me out of the woodwork! Those are really cool!

What is the address of the nursery? I'd like to go see those. Are they for sale?

They are wood, deeply carved and are for sale. I told Tony about them a while back, but took some time to find the photos (taken a few months ago). They are at the Oceano Nursury on Highway 1 in Oceano. I think they were about $385.00-$400.00 and not sure if they came with the pump. It is a great Nursury to walk through and they have some glass floats (pricey) and vintage surfboards in the barn/showroom (not for sale). They also have another location in Pismo Beach called Plumeria Nursury that has Tikis, Bamboo Bars, and tropical decor besides all the plants. It's down the street from the KonTiki Motel. Something about a nursury by the beach that exudes a great vibe. Maybe because they can grow the tropicals better than most. Ron's Nursury in Grover Beach sometimes has coffee trees and heliconias.

I did a Google search and found this:

Oceano Nursery
1311 Paso Robles Street
Oceano, CA 93445
Phone: (805) 489-4456

San Luis Obispo County

That is so crazy! That place is literally less than a half mile from my house... I haven't been in there in awhile. I think it is the same owner as the nursery in Pismo. They also have these gi-normous metal sculptures of T-Rexs and Brontosaurus' each standing around 15 - 20 feet tall. I'll have to wander over there when I get a chance.

*** BUMP ***

Bad news, the Oceano Nursery is closing up and the tikis are all but gone now. They are having a liquidation sale, but honestly there is only one, very sad tiki left.

My Mom's boyfriend confided to me that he always wanted a tiki in his back yard. Back in the day, he spent a lot of weekends at the Coconut Grove and Don the Beachcomber, he tried to tiki-fy his back yard in the 60's but his now ex-wife put her foot down. Every time he comes over to my house he brings it up. He's now in his 80's his health is failing, but he always says he wishes he would have just bought them when he had the chance, now it's too late. So my Mom called me a couple of weeks ago and asked me if I would go with her to get a couple of large tikis for their back yard as a surprise for him. She heard of a guy a few miles north of here who carved them and she wanted to make sure she was getting a good deal. We ended up in wine country in Templeton, on Vineyard Drive off of the 101 freeway. There's a house just west of the freeway that sells cut wine barrels for $15. When we pulled into the driveway, we were greeted by an army of tikis lining the drive. Imagine how dumb I felt that I didn't have my camera. I found out that they were all carved by R.L. Blair. One of the tikis inside the store was a 5 foot tall bobble head tiki. It was awesome! It is a Ku tiki with a giant industrial spring neck. He also has a bunch of forest gnome creepy faced carvings, some bears like the one's you see in Disney's "Critter Country" too. As for the tikis, some were painted, some were plain, some were woodburned. All of them were cool as hell. The prices ranged from $90 to $400. The most expensive one was a 7 foot totem style pole. There were a few that were obviously Disney Tiki Room inspired, and several were similar to the photos Bongofury posted above, but I saw no fountains.

Here's what she picked out for him:

This guy is 3.5 foot tall, painted and clear coated. $175 made out of palm

and a four foot one to hang on the wall for $120, carved from oak

of course I had to get one for me as well

four foot, made of oak, $200

My Mom's boyfriend's face was priceless when he saw me drive up with the tikis in the bed of my truck; he was smiling from ear to ear. Then his face went to confusion when I started to unload them. He actually teared up when we got the dolly and trucked them into the back yard. He was so touched! It was an amazing experience.

This guy is really talented.

I hope you CA folks know how lucky you are to have access to some of the coolest tikis around.

Glad you found something you liked. We were up that way last month and saw that they were closing and having a "50%" off sale. At first we were excited and hoped we could get a deal on a fountain or some of the old anchors thay had scattered about......only problem is the new prices on nautical stuff and the tiki fountains had doubled ($800.00)! So no half off and no sale.

I had the pleasure of meeting R.L. and his wife Mary in Oceana at his carving yard. He also sells his stuff at Plumerias in Pismo. He has since moved his yard. In addition to carving amazing tikis he also carves amazing bears. His bears are at Disneyland in Bear Country and the Bear Country Jamboree. If I'm not mistaken he has done some tikis for Disney as well. He does the Quartsite show annually and his carvings are showcased in many books including the art of the chainsaw.

You're right about the price doubling, bongofury. My friend said the same thing.

About RL Blair, he lives in Templeton now. I found out that one of his buddies is selling his art for him now, he's the one we found. My mom is Treasurer for the San Luis Obispo Wine Society, someone in her group mentioned the tikis to her when they went to drop off wine casks, that's how we heard about the new location.

I also have a couple of the bears he carves, my mom has a wooden indian of his as well as bears, seagulls and a garden creature.

Here's a link from R.L.'s web site to his gallery showing the Disney creations and other carvings

http://www.rlblair.com/wood-sculpture-gallery.htm

My mom actually has met him several times, she just didn't put two and two together until the other day when I took the pictures. She commissioned the Cigar Store Indian for her old store she had of antiques and indian artifacts. She said he was really nice and really reasonable.

I think I need a tall peeing tiki fountain for my front yard. The neighbors eye me suspisiously for the tikilite decoration at the front of my house anyway so I ought to do something to piss them off.

nice tiki-fountain at the http://twilightmotel.com/ !