Royal Hawaiian, Huntington beach, CA (apartments)

Name:Royal Hawaiian
Type:apartments
Street:220 12th Street
City:Huntington beach
State:CA
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:
Status:operational

Description:
Last weekend I was in SoCal doing some tiki research for a few days. Bigbro and I spent an entire day hunting down some unknown apartment complexes around Orange County and Long Beach. Well, as luck would have it, the day after our expedition, I found this place. I had a few hours to kill before flying out of the Orange County Airport, so I jumped over to Huntington Beach to explore this place. I had read somewhere about the Royal Hawaiian apartments and that two tikis were located out front, but no pictures.

The Royal Hawaiian Apartments

Management sign on the front of the building

These are the two carport tikis that were originally discussed. They front 12th Street.

Detail of carport tiki on the left.

Detail of carport tiki on the right.

Step through these heavy bamboo doors into the courtyard.....

...and you will find a couple more support pole tikis.

Courtyard tikis.

Detail of courtyard tiki on the right.

Detail of courtyard tiki on the left.

But my favorite part of this comlex was this exterior three dimensional outrigger sign on the front of the building. While I was photographing it, one of the oldtimer residents was walking by and asked what I was doing. I explained and then he told me that a few years ago this sign was entirely covered with the tiles that are still left on the face. But one morning he came out to walk his dog and all of the original tiles (except for the face) had fallen off. He told me that winter had been especially wet and that was why the tiles had probably fallen off. So the sign was sent out to a sign shop and repainted and hung back up. I give kudos to the properety manager fot repairing the sign instead of trashing it in favor of something more modern!

Detail of the face with the original tile work (looks very American Indian to me)

Damn I just saw this place last week.

was gonna shot it soon,

ya beat me to it man,

good job.

Jeff(bigtikidude)

WHY

DID

THEY

PAINT

THE

TIKIS

YELLOW ????

Great place, someone needs to retore it right tho'. Kudos for the sign restoration. I agree.

How far from the ocean is this place ?

2 blocks to the sand and surf, it is in the 200 block just north of Pacific Coast hwy.

Well.....next year, when the kid graduates, and I move the hell outta the valley, if I move to HB, I'll seek this place out.

It's either that of the TIKI APTS in REDONDO !

I've committed myself to living as close to the ocean as possible, the next time I move.

I wonder how much rents are in this place.

Do you have your TIKIYAKI ORCHESTRA CD YET ?
http://www.tikiyakiorchestra.com

[ Edited by: tikiyaki 2008-04-25 10:33 ]

Great one, Mike! What the hell were we doing in Long Beach! :) Dang, I wish I would have caught this place when the sign was still original. I think that head looks like King Kukulele.

On 2008-04-25 09:56, tikiyaki wrote:
WHY

DID

THEY

PAINT

THE

TIKIS

YELLOW ????

My guess is that the tiki's and bamboo where showing a little age and they didn't know what else to do but paint. A little brown wash and drybrush would bring them way back to life!

Went by this place after my morning surf. Still looks amazing.
Definitely worth a visit if you are in the area!!

Definitely one of the last Tiki villages kept pretty much in original condition, considering the times.
Went by there after the last Don's Marketplace, it's just down PCH from there.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2013-05-31 14:07 ]

On 2013-05-31 09:51, Luckydesigns wrote:
Went by this place after my morning surf. Still looks amazing.
Definitely worth a visit if you are in the area!!

Tell them what your caption was on Instagram. Because it was really funny.

Exeter asked that I convey this message: "Now that is Tiki!"
or was it the ghost of Huell Howser?
no, he is asking for a Mai Tai, it was definitely Exeter.....

Okay, because I have the ability to swallow my pride, here's what I posted to Instagram earlier:

"After my morning surf this (uh) morning, I stumbled upon the Royal Hawaiian Apartments in Huntington Beach. I CAN'T believe I have never seen this place before. It's probably just like the time, in the early days of Tiki Central, when I discovered Sam's Seafood.... And everyone played along asking me more and more about the place like they had never heard of it before. Like I was some big shot urban archeologist (remember, this was in the EARLY days of TC)... Anyway, I was super excited to find this place! Great way to start a Friday. Oh, and the waves were pretty fun too!"

So there you go, I've lived in Newport Beach/ Costa Mesa for 35 years. Is there ANYTHING else that I have missed?? I don't know how this place escaped me for so long. And yeah, Sven, like you said, the place is still very much as it would have been when it was built. Doubly exciting to me was that 1960 Thunderbird parked in one of the car ports. Just as it may have been in the early '60s.

By the way, see more pics and follow us on Instagram @theHulaGirls