Playa del Rey Polynesian Apartments, Los Angeles, CA (apartments)

Name:Playa del Rey Polynesian Apartments
Type:apartments
Street:8700 Pershing Drive, Playa del Rey
City:Los Angeles
State:CA
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:
Status:defunct

Description:
circa 1966 brochure from the Playa del Rey:

Puamana,

Thanks for posting that great brochure. What great renderings of the inside of the units.

Here is a link to a post from Bigbro several years back that has a lot more information on the life and death of this great place.

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=24905&forum=1&vpost=319657&hilite=Kona%20Pali

DC

[ Edited by: Dustycajun 2009-04-21 12:22 ]

A thing of beauty, indeed! Great find, Mimi. Never seen it in color until now. Again proof that Tiki apartment interiors, just like Tiki Hotel and Motel rooms, were usually done in a more sparse "Tiki Modern" style (often with Asian accents), rather than classic full-on Tiki, which was reserved for the rumpus rooms of houses.

But THE GROUNDS were spectacular and rivaled those of the Tiki restaurants, in amount of Tikis, and in the landscaping with water features and torches. The rendering of the building does not convey the splendor of the courtyards and pools within, but the waterfall rendering gives a good idea of it.

Thanks for linking my labor-of-love post, Dusty, I just updated it with some Kona Kai photos at the end.

Since I can no longer assume that everybody here owns the Book of Tiki, here again this great 1964 photo:

...and a zoom-in and re-focus of some Tiki details:

Sigh. What a place. I could have lived there in my time.

P.S.: Love this line: "STUDY the ways of the tropical fish in the ponds" !
Now THAT would have gotten me to commit to rent, hook and sinker! :)

Oh, and I found this classic blurp from a builder's magazine:

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2009-04-21 15:55 ]

Thanks, Mimi - That's fantastic in color!

Zulu

How does it look now?

On 2009-04-24 01:10, christiki295 wrote:
How does it look now?

It got decimated about 10 years ago (maybe less?)

They put up a Stucco Taco Bell Tuscany UGLY-ass condo building in it's place....the same kinda crap they've been putting up all over LA in te past 5-10 years.

Very Sad.

i grew up in playa del rey and i remember how cool this place was. i can remember a couple of times when thay had all the gas tiki torches around the complex burning and tiki music playing.it had carved tikis everywhere-- super cool!!i have to say that by the time it was torn down it had become a bit neglected like a lot of tiki temples.
it was torn down along with the bar/restaraunt next door--the admirals dingy(which later became acapulco's).ggod memories. so sad to see them gone a replaced like tikiyaki said by some crappy taco bell style stucco condo's.

On 2009-04-27 10:01, ron-tiki wrote:
...i have to say that by the time it was torn down it had become a bit neglected like a lot of tiki temples.
it was torn down along...

That was because of what is known as "intentional neglect": Property owners, in anticipation of selling their property because the value of the lot exceeds the value of the building, let a property fall apart and stop paying for fixing and renovating it. They wait till all the renter's leases have run out and do not take any new renters, and let the grounds go to shit. Then the neighboring tenants and businesses say "Oh what an eyesore" and will not resist its destruction. It's a lot more subtle than "Demolition by arson."

2 years before the place was razed, all its apartments were fully rented, and the grounds were well maintained, with running waterfalls and clean swimming pools. You would have never suspected it was threatened by demolition.

I spotted this old postcard on ebay a while back with some great photos of the exterior.

Back of the card.

I also came across this website with some more photos of the apartments.

http://donosdump.com/Westchester/PVillage.html

They sure don't build'em like they used to.

DC

Playa del Rey carvings that were for sale at the Art of Tiki: No False Idols show at La Luz de Jesus gallery.

Supposedly these were carved by Bumatay and Ellis... was this ever confirmed?

..Added the link for the show since the jpegs I posted are a little bit low quality.
http://laluzdejesus.com/the-art-of-tiki-no-false-idols/