The Art of Apartment Archaeology

I feel compelled to direct the TC community's attention to the recent activities in this particular genre of classic Tiki culture which have appeared in the perhaps sometimes overlooked "Locating Tiki" forum. Several members and some newcomers to TC have provided further proof that Tiki apartments indeed are the most plentiful testimony still in existence that Tiki style was not just a "tacky" fad, but a style in its own right, just like Art Nouveaux or Post Modern architecture.

The "language" of Tiki style, which was invented by the Tiki restaurants and bars, was transferred to Motels and especially apartment buildings, as I demonstrated in the Book of Tiki with the rendering of the Pele Apartments:

All the elements pointed out here, which were used to varying degrees in apartment buildings in (mainly) Southern California, had come into use in Tiki restaurants first and were then simply translated for Tiki apartment architecture.

When I set out to research my first book in 1992, there were still Tikis to be found in many of the "Tiki Villages" I discovered. Ironically, though the main icon of the style, the Tikis were the fastest to decay and the easiest to get rid off for "modernization" because most of the time they were not structural, so nowadays the once plentiful freestanding carvings are very rarely encountered.

However, many other determining features of the style, like A-frame entrances, and the remnants of elaborate landscaping concepts are rewarding finds for the urban archaeologist to this day. Here are some examples of details we came upon when I joined noted Tiki apartment explorer Zulu Magoo on an urban expedition just a few weeks ago. I will point out some details to look for in apartment archaeology (Zulu. please p.m. me with the names of the places that are missing so I can ad them here, I did not write them down because I knew you would :) . And please ad some of your own shots!)

First of the exotic names of the apartments, usually written in some exotic typeface:

Professor Dr Magoo unable to gain access to the courtyard. But visual surveying of this site revealed:
Besides its great sign, this complex was a dud, as were all dwellings in Long Beach carrying the by-name "Imperial". I deduced that they must have all been built to benefit from the trend by a Chinese developer in the area, much like many Chinese restaurants jumped on the Tiki train late.

Since my early research missions, many original wood signs have fallen apart, and often once Polynesian named places have been rechristened into generic Hispanic place names, like this fine A-frame which once was the "Mauna Loa Gardens" and is now called the "Orange View Villas":

The Samoan Apartments below sported TWO A-frames, and a gas torch hidden behind a palm tree was the only detail left of the "Pele" feature list:

Right across the street was a square looking apartment block with this surprising "concrete pebble" mural of a palm tree and island with the name "The Hawaiian" set in stone:

On another apartment building wall we found what one might call a mysterious "Hiroshima victim shadow" imprint of a Tiki:

Around the entrance there were several great lava rock planter walls that once must have formed impressive water features. The interior courtyard was a text book example of "easy maintenance" Tiki landscaping devolution:

The moat that once ran under the lava rock bridge had been filled in, any tropical foliage had been reduced to a tree stump, and the bane of Tiki apartments, the dreaded safety fence, obscured the view to the now barren A-frame rec room.

One place, the Nani Loa Isle, was a happy surprise, as the courtyard with its lush foliage revealed several decaying Tikis in situ:

Because we were in the neighborhood, we visited the amazingly intact Kona Gardens Apartments again (205 S. Western Ave, Garden Grove), whose sign and unique map holding Tiki I got to show in "Tiki Modern", thanks to Zulu Magoo's research:

The exposure problem I had encountered previously, where the contrast between the bright sun and the shade under the map Tiki's A-frame roof was too much, was present again, so here is another shot of the map Tiki being visible with the outside overexposed:

This place is one of the best preserved Tiki Villages left, just look at this fern wood Tiki and the anchor chain railing.

The lava rock walls on the left and right once housed nice water features...

...and what really killed me was finding the legs of what must have once been an amazing lava rock carved Tiki in the rock planter on the right side. These were at least two feet wide, so he must have been impressive:

So I urge everybody to peruse the various Tiki apartment posts now up in "Locating Tiki", some begun by Sabu years ago, and now updated by Tiki Kate and Bora Boris, who have been very adventurous lately. I intend to ad some substantial material in this section soon.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2008-05-02 04:30 ]

Oh this is so sad.

I’m fantasizing right now that some of our generous minded carvers get together and donate tikis to replace those missing at these apartments. In fact everyone of these places should have at least one tiki. Tiki charity if you will. What a great way it would be for us to give back to a culture that gives us so much pleasure.

MrsHoptiki

Incredible Sven - you must take me on this tour upon my next visit to Los Angeles!!!

Thank you for the pictures, I'm drooling now...

Those Tiki Apartment posts have become a favorite. As someone who has been on a couple of excavations (Roman/Etruscan), these quests for vestiges of Poly-pop paradise lost really invoke the sense of romance and adventure that first drew me to my lifelong interest in archaeology.

Thanks to all of you who are documenting these disappearing places. The photos and info are really fascinating! There is something about lava rock walls with the clean lines of post war Bauhaus inspired architecture. Throw an A frame and Tikis into the mix---does it get any cooler?

[ Edited by: TabooDan 2008-05-17 18:38 ]

Here are a few more pictures from that expedition a few weeks ago.

As we were just starting our day, this place caught our eye as we drove by. It was the palm trees that jumped out at us. (Note: This has been stated before several times, but turns out to be true 6 times out of 10. If you see a grove of 100'+ palm tress in an area of apartments, investigate. They are a dead giveaway.)

So we turned around. Ironically, it is now called the 'Knott Victorian'. Very few traces of Polynesian pop remained, but certainly no Victorian influences.

Knott Victorian, north of Knott Ave and Lincoln, Anaheim

The pink color scheme was odd. (Notice the 100'+ palms...)

Urban exploration in action!

Sven capturing two of the in-situ garden tikis at the Nani-Loa Isle in Anaheim

The clubhouse at the Nani-Loa Isle

Nice exterior lamps hanging at The Samoan on W. Pampas Lane

Another shot of The Hawaiian rock mural

Closer investigation revels that the mural is made of different colored aggregates

Here is the exterior sign for the Kona Gardens in Garden Grove back when I first discovered the complex back in 2005. Plain white letters.

Then on our return trip a few weeks ago we discovered that the new management company (Swami Management) had taken down the sign and sent it out to be refurbished!!! Kudos to Swami!!!

Keep hunting, these places are still out there. You don't have to be in Southern California to find them, I have found several here locally in the Denver area.

Zulu

I just want to say THANKS to Bigbro, Zulu, Boraboris, and Kate for all the recent writeups and pics of all these great places!

There's an apt. complex near me that I've been eyeballing forever, and you guys have inspired me to go shoot it and start a thread in Locating Tiki.
And to seek out more! :D

Sven, if you EVER decide to host a tour, I think that there are many of us who would PAY for the opportunity to go along with you to see these structures and hear you talk about them. Followed by dinner at Bahooka or some other tropical place. Seriously, think about it! And put me on the list as your first paying sightseer! I live in Los Angeles, and yes, I know I could just go and visit these places on my own, but having you lead the way would be much more educational and fun. -- Kari Hendler (Tiki Magazine)

There's at least a few places near my friend down in the Ocean Beach neighborhood of San Diego. I will try to get more info the next time I'm down there!

On 2008-05-01 15:49, bigbrotiki wrote:
The moat that once ran under the lava rock bridge had been filled in, any tropical foliage had been reduced to a tree stump, and the bane of Tiki apartments, the dreaded safety fence, obscured the view to the now barren A-frame rec room.

In an otherwise enjoyable thread, this is a very depressing comment! :(

Yes, reality rears its ugly head.

Yes, I need to get off my rump and shoot a couple of pics of a few in my hood that I noticed.

Yep, I have to stop by a couple when in the valley this week & have a closer look at the apt. on Balboa Blvd. I haven't seen it up close in years. I had a few friends that lived in them when we were all single, those friends thought nothing of it, just a place to call home.... for now...

Excellent photos.
A tour would be great idea.

In the interim, how about corresponding addressses?

Wellll.....that's why I started this thread, to wet people's appetite for Tiki apartment archeology, and then call their attention to the LOCATING TIKI forum:

If you use the SEARCH function here on TC, just write"apartments" into the keyword box, mark "Subject" just below that, and choose "Locating Tiki" as forum:
Voila, you will get a seemingly endless list of apartment links of which most of them have their addresses listed (..and I am am not talking just about the ones in the well-tread Rosemead corridor :) ).

A tour is a problem in as so far as we would want to explore not only the outside, but also the courtyards and any other nooks of these places. One or two people can be inconspicuous enough to sneak in through left open security gates and take pics and get out again swiftly, but a whole tour group would mean notifying the managers or owners, who for the most case would have no interest to help us. Tiki archeology is a covert mission best undergone in small numbers!

Maybe we should rent a tour bus with a power point projector, and turn it into an "Urban archeology" training camp. I could be lecturing on what to look out for as an apartment explorer while we're on the way, and at each stop we would send out just one team of two, different people each time, who would bring their digital photos back to the bus to view on the ride to the next destination... :D

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2008-05-17 23:10 ]

There is a double decker bus for rent in Malibu that would be perfect to hire for this. I'm in!

mai tais and map reading???

Jeff(bigtikidude)

One of the cool byproducts of looking for these places are some of the other apartments you find along the way. Not necessarily Tiki but still cool.

Also be sure and check your rear view mirror often, while you're going 4 mph trying to see what's behind some palm trees the people in the line of cars behind you don't care and would like to kill you.

Seriously! :o

Indeed one does come across many not-quite-tiki but still very cool places during the hunt.

Sometimes a nice font in a great color will catch your eye. And then sadly, there will be nothing more charming than the sign.

Here's one place I couldn't get in to. Not that I tried all that hard. I was pretty intrigued but just didn't have the time to invest.

I would be into going on a group tour someday...... hint

Someone ought to uh, liberate some of those forgotten, decaying tikis..assuming they wouldn't be missed.

It is archeological grave robbery to remove artifacts from still existing Tiki temples. Let them decay in situ where they were meant to be, there are enough Tikis out there nowadays for everyone.

I realize it's tempting, but it really is bad luck.

Bosko

How about if they are cast aside, forgotten and left to rot in a pile of rubble behind an out-building?

[ Edited by: 4WDtiki 2008-06-03 20:12 ]

On 2008-06-03 15:19, Tiki Lee's wrote:
How about if they are cast aside, forgotten and left to rot in a pile of rubble behind an out-building?

If they are lying down, behind the building, or are with other junk, they are obviously about to be dumped, so of course rescue them. But if they are still in the ground, just decaying like their native predecessors in the Marquesan Jungle, leave them be.

This post is not about TIKI apt archeology per se, but about the Art of urban, and specifically apartment archeology in LA....yet it might lead to solving an old Tiki mystery for me:

In her recently published book "The Long Embrace", writer Judith Freeman approaches making a biography about author Raymond Chandler and his wife Cissy's life by visiting every place they ever lived in in Los Angeles...and they moved over 30 times!

By doing so, she paints a wonderful portrait of LA in the 30 and 40s and its comparison to today. Chandler had used LA in his novels, both his characters and his locales were based on his own experiences with real people and real places in this city. In the age-old tradition of archaeological books :) , the book has a handy map in the end pages:

I like maps, but what I really appreciate are her musings about Los Angeles. Here she describes why LA was such a perfect place for the germination of Polynesian pop:

...and also here, about the difference between Los Angelinos and the citizens of other metropolises:

When I lived in Koreatown on Catalina Street in the 80s, I visited the same places as she did: She mentions the closure of the Ambassador Hotel pool (the last operating entity on that huge property), and her changing over to using the Sheraton Townhouse pool (both were run down Wilshire corridor hotels in my neighborhood), and in the following section she nails what is so vexing about this city, and why one has to have been traversing it and exploring it and living in it for years to make it ones own:

I share this sick glee at the confusion of the casual LA tourist, knowing that, as the Sufis say, "the secret protects itself". But then, isn't it just the shadow of a secret, a secret about the loss of a real secret?:

"...buildings that had failed their promise" (shudder) Sounds like the history of Polynesian pop to me folks. And like urban archeology in action:

...and so we mourn the modern malaise, .....but wouldn't we be out of a "job" if it all still would be there? But then there is a limit, and nowadays SO little seems to be left to write home about.

But enough of that philosophical stuff, on to MY Chandler mystery: I am not a Chandler buff, but a film buff, so I only saw the movie with Bogey and Bacall, and did not read the book. So before I have to do that, maybe someone who did can answer this question:

How the heck did a TIKI end up on the cover of the 1954 book club edition of Chandler's "The Long Goodbye"?

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2008-06-30 17:28 ]

I don't have the answer to how the tiki ended up on the cover of the book - but I can recommend a small company, Esotouric, that offers bus tours of historic locations in the L.A. area. Two tours are based on sites associated with Raymond Chandler - next offerings are October 11 and 18.

http://www.esotouric.com/chandlerpage

The other tours look good too - Tom Waits, Charles Bukowski, architecture tours -- I wish I lived in L.A.!

One of the persons behind Esotouric is Kim Cooper, one of the two people who paired up to do the liner notes for the Arthur Lyman CD releases on Collectors Choice .... I'm hoping she might be able to provide an answer to the tiki on the cover question.

[ Edited by: ikitnrev 2008-06-30 17:16 ]

I should know it without looking - I've read all Chandler's books probably 5-6 times each now - but I still had to pull it from the shelf (after looking through boxes of books and realising the omnibus I wanted was up there all along!)
The tiki looks like a statue used as a blunt weapon, which is exactly what it was...except for the tiki part!

The dame is as naked as a mermaid on the bed and let me tell you he don't recognise her by her face. She practically ain't got one. Beat to pieces with a bronze statuette of a monkey.

Thanks Paipo, that was quick! A monkey becomes a Tiki! Welllll.... that proves again that the subconscious "sinking in" of the Tiki image into the common mind began in the mid-50s! But it does look like the face in the background (the eye, the hair, the color) is that of a monkey, no? The whole illustration has more of a 40s feel, too bad I cannot make out the name of the artist at the bottom of the Tiki.

Actually, much later, at the end of the Tiki period, there was an episode of Hawaii-5-O were the blunt weapon WAS a Tiki (one of the very few episodes of that show where a Tiki appeared).

P.S.: Makes me wonder what the mid-50s book club edition of Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon" looked like! :D

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2008-06-30 18:25 ]

Sooo....does anybody have any comments about those quotes I posted? Are they not a great description of the essence of not only L.A. urban archeology, but can be applied to some extent to other American cities, too, like Detroit? ...if anybody read them.

Since there doesn't seem to be to much interest in discussing the deeper connotations of residential and general urban archeology, how about for some Apartment Archaeology HUMOR (a burgeoning joke genre of the popular Urban Archeology Comedy scene) :D :

BigBro, I read the quotes. It was very interesting but I didn't think I was qualified to discussing the deeper connotations of residential and general urban archeology. The Crapi Apartments, however, is right up my alley. In fact I lived several places that should have been named that :)

Mike, I appreciate any, especially such an honest, response to my work here, thanks. And let us know about the results of your El Tiki archeology.

I did read your post and it's a fascinating read. And I'd like to read the book. But, it's difficult for me to relate to, not having ever lived in L.A. In fact, the whole idea of tiki "apartment archaeology" is pretty far off for those of us who don't live in California. Heck, even apartment living is pretty foreign to me. It's all interesting though, in the same way that reading about another culture is interesting. I doubt there are many here who could discuss it though unless they've experienced it first hand.

Sven,
I finally got around to reading the quotes,
I agree about how spread out everything is.
especially now that gas is goin thru the roof.
it makes it hard for some to get around and see all these places.
and when People ask what to do/see when they come here.
you kinda have to aks them what there into, as its a huge vast area with many things to look at or do. and you could easily spend a lifetime, if not a month :wink: seeing everything.

Jeff(bigtikidude)
sent you a PM about something else

Thanks Rob and Jeff. But Rob, what about this place? :) :

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=16964&forum=2&start=0

A real find! Anybody know its condition these days?
I had the impression that the Fort Lauderdale area, and some of the Florida coast, is sort of like L.A.'s vastness since the various suburbs have grown together to form larger cityscapes, and that within some cool mid-century buildings can still be found...which is not Chandleresque L.A., yet still a good urban archeology subject.

On 2008-07-07 14:22, bigbrotiki wrote:
But Rob, what about this place?

Yes, I remember when Kiliki posted those pictures of Hawaiian Gardens. The links to the pics are dead now, but they can be found over on critiki. The place is still there, but I can't attest to its current level of tikiness.

You're right, the Ft Lauderdale-Miami area still has quite a lot of mid-century architecture. And quite a lot that is sadly gone. (Much of it shown by ZuluMagoo at his fantastic tiki architecture seminar at Hukilau!) Unfortunately, that area is 3 1/2 to 4 hrs from me.

Apartment Archeology: Baldwin Village / Los Angeles.

There is some good stuff here but if you want to take a look please go During The Day!!

The Tahiti with Witco soldiers standing guard

The Bahamas

The Bahia

It’s always Christmas at the Trianon

The slander. There is no “I” in Slander.

The Malibu

Which is the home of the Tiki Hedge

The Lanai

Another Tahiti

The Tropicana

Casa De Coco

The Coco Palms

and The Newport
_

Q: How about some concrete Fleurs-de-lis?
A: Sure whatever you desire.
_

I like how this thread will cause havoc for anyone using the search engine. :lol:

Yeah, Baldwin Village has restless natives. I heard the area is also know as "The Jungle". Because of the old growth tropical plants around the apartments buildings?
Sure wish I would have known of those Witco guardians before Tiki Modern came out, what a classic Poly Pop apartment entrance!

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2008-08-11 22:06 ]

I was there a few months back doing some exploring, and it was scary even during the daytime. I always recommend that you get out of the car when you explore these places, but I made an exception in this neighborhood.

Zulu

Quotation:
"On another apartment building wall we found what one might call a mysterious "Hiroshima victim shadow" imprint of a Tiki."

Forgive them, Sven, for they know not what they had. (Or perhaps in the case of the odd missing residential tiki, someone knew what they had, and 'liberated' it.)

Translation:
"Do ye unto others as ye would have done unto thee."

Might it be considered "Horace Heidt's Estates" on Magnolia may be conspicuously missing here...? One of their tikis went missing some time ago too (the one on the west side of the guard shack) but most of the rest of their 'tiki-era'-enclave-theming yet survives, last time I looked in. Pics anybody?

SOK

Here ya go Son of Kelbo ~ Horace Heidt's Estates.

Mahalo, BB!

A real time capsule there, with liberally-applied, stylish whimsey (even a mini-golf course)... All rather well done, and surprisingly still largely intact.

[Wonder if/when Kinny will draft that strident squirrel for some nefarious thread-bashing...? :D]

Today I was able to explore a couple of locations listed in the 1960's Whittier phone books. Although I assumed that all of the places I jotted down would be gone, as Boris says, I like to go around kicking the corpses just to be sure.

I was surprised to find a couple of apartment buildings still standing. There was nothing terribly tropical about either place other than the names, but I'm still glad that I found them especially since the streets have been renumbered.

Excellent pics, guys.

With Tiki water parks and boardgames on the way and the Wall Street Journal, Forbes etc. taking notice, is anyone anywhere doing new apartment construction like this?

I finally got to stop and get a shot of The Reef. No tikis in sight, but the font is great.

I found a cluster of mid-century apartments in Portland OR built in the late 1960s. Here is the pink space age Astro

and the teal Poly-Pop Kamani

Flanked by Doug Firs so they painted Palms on the sign instead..hmmm.

I live just down the street from both of these properties.