Mai Kai - Tiki Archeology

simply beautiful
congrats.

Jeff(bigtikidude)

Good job Tom.
Great pic, the moon must be closer
to Ft. Lauderdale than Cali.

Awesome restoration! Great Job.

Here are a few more Mai Kai photos from the archives.

DC

Helloooooo Cleavland
:o

Jeff(bigtikidude)

Dusty, where did these photos come from? That looks like Mireille Thornton on the last one.

This thread is absolutely amazing. So much information being spread around with so many people bringing different facts and stories to the table. With some of those mold removals, it felt like I was reading an archaeology book ( and not even one of them thar URBAN ones!) This is why I love TikiCentral!

By the way, thank you Tom (Alohastation) for resurrecting this thread. I just re-read the whole thing. I'd forgotten how fun it was when it started. So where's the tiki now? Not still in Will's living room, is it? :wink:

On 2009-03-10 17:51, GatorRob wrote:
Dusty, where did these photos come from? That looks like Mireille Thornton on the last one.

GatorRob,

Found them on the Florida historical photo website that was posted on the Tiki Garden's thread. Here ya go.

http://www.floridamemory.com/PhotographicCollection/

DC

I picked up a seldom seen Mai Kai postcard with a view from the road. The Barney West moai statue can be seen from the roadside shot.

Also saw this postcard on ebay with a better shot of the Barney.

DC

Cool. Wonder if Fort Lauderdale had anything else back then that rivaled the Moai. It must have been a real roadside attraction then, like Dinosaur statues and other such folly.

On 2008-01-02 11:35, GatorRob wrote:

We also carved hundreds over the years of the Candle Table Lamp Bases. They were finished by the Mai Kai.

picked this candle table lamp base from an antique store at dania beach last week -

[ Edited by: Johnny Dollar 2009-06-17 10:59 ]

Bumped to the next page...

[ Edited by: AlohaStation 2009-06-19 15:56 ]

Aloha dusctycajun,

Nice pictures!!!!! :)

Is that Lundy Nelson in the above photo with the ukulele?

If not, do you have any pictures of Lundy? I would love to see them.

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

Back to the past...

As many of you saw at Hukilau, the Big Barney West tiki in the Mai Kai gardens finally surcame to the ravages of time (and bugs and water). On either Monday or Tuesday the big guy fell in the middle of the night. There is a picture out there of the fallen idol, but someone (wink, wink) needs to post it. If you saw the tiki recently you know that it was in really bad shape. Well the maintenance guys quickly proceeded to chop it into manageable pieces and tossed him into the dumpster!! The Mai Kai quickly responded to the empty space in the garden by reaching into their warehouse and retrieving one of their buried treasures.

This tiki is one of their originals and is pictured in one of the original artists renderings (in the BOT). The current theory is that the tiki had a bird that was attached to its head and somehow the bird broke off taking parts of the head with it. It was removed and stored for several decades to be resurrected this past week.

Got archive pictures? Please post if you have anything! I need an original image of this tiki. Please help.

On 2009-06-19 15:56, AlohaStation wrote:
Back to the past...

As many of you saw at Hukilau, the Big Barney West tiki in the Mai Kai gardens finally surcame to the ravages of time (and bugs and water).

one of the concierge fellows in the blazers told us that someone had stubbed out a cigarette in the tiki and a small fire had resulted. of course, this may be pure b.s....

You're talking about this tiki, right?

I'm still trying to get my head around this:

Well the maintenance guys quickly proceeded to chop it into manageable pieces and tossed him into the dumpster!!

That was an iconic tiki carved by Barney fricken West - how does it get cut up and tossed into a dumpster? In 2009? By the Mai Kai no less.

My rational brain understands it was probably rotten, spongy and termite eaten, but I've seen posts on this board of people putting huge efforts into restoring old rotten tikis that didn't have any known history. How can that tiki just have been thrown away? Unbelievable.

No, he's talking about a different image from old calendars. I have the image he is talking about on my other computer. It is similar. A skinny winged thing. I'll get it up here soon.

On 2009-06-20 15:10, Koolau wrote:
You're talking about this tiki, right?

No, that guy is still there.

This is the guy that went down just before Hukilau:

Time and the South Florida Weather have been unkind to him. And the termites didn't help. I looked down into what was left of his feet, it was really amazing he didn't come down sooner.

We had some rather gusty winds the week before Hukilau and it was too much for him. He fell over backwards, went through a section of fence and hit the ground pretty hard. Kind of like in the movies where they pour the liquid nitrogen over somebody and then they break into a billion tiny pieces.... that gives you an idea. Apparently there weren't too many bits big enough to really do anything with.

And, since the Mai Kai was about to host all of the visitors in town for the Hukilau, they scrambled through the warehouse and found this guy:

On 2009-06-19 15:56, AlohaStation wrote:

To stand in for the fallen tiki. The fence was patched and some plants added so everyone could still have their picture taken with the Tiki's.

And no... the new guy in the gardens is not the "Bird Head Tiki" from the BOT or the original renderings:

Poor Barney
R.I.P.

I think I've seen pics of the new guy in the Molakai
Back in the day. I'd seen it in the wharehse & it was
there because it had been damaged. He gad something
behind his head, indicated by a slot back there.
If I had a pic I could try & replace what ever it was.

Yuck! Tiki-gore!
Poor guy...

The tiki that went up in his place used to be on the endcap in the Surf Bar (Pre-Molokai). There is a postcard of this tiki from the day complete with a few of those famous pineapple stools in view.

On 2009-06-22 08:09, Basement Kahuna wrote:
The tiki that went up in his place used to be on the endcap in the Surf Bar (Pre-Molokai). There is a postcard of this tiki from the day complete with a few of those famous pineapple stools in view.

Yep. That's it!

And I think there is a sketch in a calendar. Still looking.

I was under the impression the head was destroyed. Heck, that's salvagable. Wish I had known.

Your key to Beachbum Berry's books. Login and start concocting!

[ Edited by: Swanky 2009-06-22 10:06 ]

Now we're cooking with Solar Power!! I really need a representation of the headpiece, please. Is there a date on that photo/card?

I was told that the maintenance guys trampled (especially the face) what was left as they cleaned it up almost immediately. We ALL would have loved to salvage him but to the Mai-Kai's credit they did clean it up before most folks even realized what happened. Most of us on this site would have preferred a different course of action - coulda, woulda, shoulda - its done. From what I understand he didn't all go in the dumpster??

Aha!
June 1974

I knew I'd seen it. Not much help repairing it though.

I don't think the one pictured in the Molokai is the same one
in the garden now. The garden one is 14 ft tall & has 3 feet in the ground. The one in the Molokai looks to be 9 foot or so.

This has got to be an ultra rare mug, The cocktail is the Orbit Drink. I want one of these, hell I want the drink recipe. The caption with the picture says.

"Waitress in Mai Kai restaurant serving Orbit Drink in honor of John H. Glenn's space flight. January 1 1962"

Whoa... we're all over the place with the topics on this thread!

Johnny D, nice score! I'd love to find one of those lamps.

Trav, extremely cool photo. That calls for more investigating!

Okay, the tiki... Sorry Will, but I have to agree with Swanky and BK. I've compared them closely and it has to be the same tiki. There's another picture of that tiki, but in it, the tiki is located under the A frame and you get a slightly better view of those wings behind the head. I'll post it if/when I can.

I just found this thread - wow! Thanks for posting this preservation info.

Thanks for popping in Robb.

After closer inspection, I can accurately say that its the same tiki in the bar shot. Still need a photo with the wings.

MAI KAI GRAND OPENING!

Bought these gift shop photos of the early Mai Kai on ebay some time back and came across this ad for the grand opening of the Mai Kai. Thought they went together well.

DC

Kohalacharms image posted elsewhere shows the real size of the piece in the Surf Bar. Huge. THis is around 1958.

Sorry this is so late and thanks to Gator Rob for telling me of this thread, I'm still knee deep in Hukilau.

This is definitely the Tiki that is now in the gardens. I have other pictures as well but I'm trying to find them from when I scanned the archives. Enjoy:

That's what I'm talking about!! :)

Just so everyone is not confused. The Surf Board Bar was in a different location to the Molokai. It was located where Tonga is today along the side of the room on your way to the gardens. It once had a diorama that featured a sunrise, sunset, men carving tikis and women doing the hula. The diorama was located behind the bar. I have a few pictures where you can see it in the distance - will post when I can find them. There's also a picture in this thread that shows those dining in the garden area and the surf board bar just behind them. http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=21971&forum=1&start=15

Someone needs to do a COMPLETE and EXHAUSTIVE book on the Mai Kai.

I'd pay $150 for it. Maybe more.

No question, a nice glossy coffee-table number on the Mai-Kai would sell. And more calendars!

On 2009-07-01 15:26, Robb Hamel wrote:
Someone needs to do a COMPLETE and EXHAUSTIVE book on the Mai Kai.

I'd pay $150 for it. Maybe more.

Been discussed, and to some extent written.

I am hoping to lead a walking history tour of the Mai Kai for next Hukilau, but, it has to be worked out with the Mai Kai and Hukilau. It's a great excuse to go down there and talk history with the old timers though. Maybe it can be done.

Here is another picture of the tiki now in the gardens when it was indoors in the Surfboard Bar:

Sorry about the quality, but we're zoomed way in to a low res image. If you look closely, you can see that not only are there wings behind the figure's head, but an entire bird! So this makes him (her?) a close relative of the other winged tiki that we know was at the Mai-Kai as Chip pointed out earlier in this thread.

According to Bob and LeRoy at OA, our tiki here may have been carved by Barney West, although they are not certain. Bob pointed out that they sold Jack Thornton tons of authentic New Guinea artifacts in the early days. But I don't know that this would have been one of them. It seems more like someone's (Barney's?) take on a PNG carving. But that's just my opinion.

Big mahalo to Bob and LeRoy for sending me this next image from the ARTS OF THE SOUTH SEAS book (Museum of Modern Art, Simon and Schuster, 1946). If the Mai-Kai tiki is a mid-century interpretation of a genuine Papua New Guinea carving, this may very well be the image it was derived from:

That's quite a bird! And what a sight that big tiki must have been when it was under the A frame of the Mai-Kai!

This last image is one I found of another authentic carving of the same general figure:

The accompanying text reads: "This ancient and elegant piece is a roof spire from a Middle Sepik ceremonial house. Represented is a heron carrying away a woman — a classic Sepik River creation figure."

Tom and Will, you've got your work cut out for you if you're going to try to replace the missing bird! Not to mention some trees that might get in the way of that wingspan.

It's too big to be an PNG original I am fairly sure. It's someone's interpretation.

It is a reproduction. I'm not sure who did it. The carving was created by laminating 4" thick slabs of wood. My concern is - without protection from moisture - how long will the piece be able to hold up to the South FL humidity?

BINGO! This also solves the enigma of the strange winged figure at the Mauna Loa in Mexico City:

Thanks for doing the research!

On 2009-07-09 10:36, AlohaStation wrote:
It is a reproduction. I'm not sure who did it.

Tom,

This doesn't answer your question as to who carved it, but here are a few more clues from Bob at OA:

When doing the Mai Kai job, George Nakashima and Florian Gabriel used a carver in Portland more than once and it might have been his. However we both agreed that the figure could very well have been by Barney West----not typical but has some similarities to a few he's done. In the end we think it was done by Barney West.

and:

there were so many carvers in the earlier years that unless you have an invoice one can't positively say it was from so and so carver.

And finally, this is related:

On 2005-01-27 16:49, bigbrotiki wrote:

"...Bob Thornton always chose professional Polynesian pop artists to expand on his realm, hiring George Nakashima and Florian Gabriel of Stephen Crane and Associates as art directors and using decor by Oceanic Arts in Whittier to give the Mai Kai that much claimed “authentic” touch..."

Although Sven's quote above mentions Bob Thornton, it's been my understanding that Jack Thornton did most of the design related ordering, while Bob tended to run the business side of things. But regardless, the winged tiki dates back to the late 50s when the Mai-Kai first opened (which still has me going WOW!) and anything that can be done to preserve it (like move it indoors!) or restore it would be well worth it.

On 2009-07-10 15:53, GatorRob wrote:

Although Sven's quote above mentions Bob Thornton, it's been my understanding that Jack Thornton did most of the design related ordering, while Bob tended to run the business side of things. But regardless, the winged tiki dates back to the late 50s when the Mai-Kai first opened (which still has me going WOW!) and anything that can be done to preserve it (like move it indoors!) or restore it would be well worth it.

When I talked to George Nakashima he stressed that Jack was the more creative and imaginitive side of the duo. I think that was what George wanted. Jack was the designer. Although it is Bob's Mai Kai we have today, due to Jack's bowing out after his stroke.

It is amazing to see a piece of 1956 Mai Kai there, although it is not a great replacement for what was there in my opinion. I agree that I'd rather see it moved inside and something weightier there. Inside, that piece would seem much bigger and impressive.

I suppose I am some kind of obsessed, but, I spent yesterday driving cross country to pick up this hunk of rotten wood.

Barely stuffed it in my back seat.

Yes, I have the only hunk of the big guy from the Mai Kai gardens.

Thinking of how to display this piece in my home. I am so proud...

[ Edited by: Swanky 2009-09-15 09:05 ]

Congrats Tim on your artifact. To denote that it is indeed a relic, and not just a chunk of rotten wood for your fireplace, I would

A.) Put it on a tribal art gallery stand/ base (preferably black acrylic), like this

..or, even more poignant in my opinion, a stand with an iron rod, such as this:

B.) Spotlight it from above, and

C.) Find a good photo of the original in situ, and encircle the section (or make a red square around it) that you own. Write a brief description of the site and the carver, with dates, for it, frame that together and put it by the piece.

That is the plan Sven. I intend to support it with rods so that it stands on a base, just as it was when it was part of the whole. I want to have a history and images sealed near it. Unfortunately, it is way too massive to go in the bar, and no other real place to have it indoors or on the porch. So, I will be making a thatch roof over it by the fence so it will be sheltered from further rain and rot.

It will have a sort of museum/shrine setting.

LOTS of Minwax wood hardener to come.

I just wish I'd gotten there a little sooner and found a chunk of it's head. All that was left when I found it was pieces of the back which were non-descript and this arm, which is more butt than tummy actually.

Seeing the innerds of this one, it must be a matter of time for the others. Please DO NOT lean on the others that are left! Any one of us could have hit this one hard and broken it to pieces. There is essentially no solid wood left... Get your picture with the Barney West out front while you can.

On 2009-09-15 09:04, Swanky wrote:
I just wish I'd gotten there a little sooner and found a chunk of it's head.

Some of the locals got the biggest pieces of the head. Not much viable wood in the head, the center was little more than sawdust.

I know a couple of the locals are going to try and carve miniature versions of the original guy in whatever viable wood could be recovered and then have them put back on display somewhere in the Mai Kai.