Rancho Mahalo - my new build in South Austin, TX

Aloha folks! - I've been looking around and enjoying posts here a long time, but lost my old account info. I'm a designer living in Austin, TX - and a longtime tiki fan. I finally have a project coming together thats worth posting and sharing, and could use use some good input here and there too. We have a cool little midcentury ranch home that we've been enjoying and doing improvements here and there for a few years, and finally we are ready to get the big screened in porch project - our South Austin Lanai - underway. I've got a great designer/builder I'm working with to bring Rancho Mahalo to life.

Heres a peek at the plan:

Its all screened in - so we don't have to worry with those Texas mosquitos and biting critters that can make relaxing with a Mai Tai a little difficult. All cedar construction and will have alot of cool custom tiki touches. Its going to be a big added area to enjoy at home. Nice modern A-frame roofline compliments the house and gives it a period shape - dig the custom "prow" shape at the top of the middle support beam.

The current patio is just a concrete slab with a small metal roof over it - we are taking the metal roof out and going over the top of the concrete with a raised deck to take in all of the space

The bar and furniture is from my good pal Von Franco, and used to be on his old tiki porch in Riverside, CA - we spent some good times hanging out back there, and now the bar is gonna get a new home here

Some great carvings from B-One Tikis

Landscaping is going in back there too - we had to hold it up a bit for construction to get going

But now it is rolling and progress is getting made - the subfloor going in:

And starting to rise up!

Super excited to get this project happening, and I'll share more progress and some sketches of ideas as we get further along

Thanks for all the great resources here, and figured this would be a great way to reintroduce myself to the Tiki Room Community!

Glad that bar went to someone who appreciates it. I spent quite a bit of time in franco's riverside tiki patio, smokin cigars and hangin out.

I look forward to the progress...

Now that's a serious project, have fun.

wow, that's some serious space!!! Im so jealous since Im in a little condo and have no where to go! lovin the tiki masks and animal print!!! Im betting your holding the good stuff back to wow us all once its done!!! Id love to do what your doing on my patio, maybe enclose it and give me more indoor/outdoor living space, but my evil H.O.A. and Commissar frowns on add-ons or any thing that looks different, I guess its time to move!!!
cant wait to see more!!!!!!!!!!!

pele

Heave-ho and up she rises!!! Man, this is exciting!!!

Best of luck, really look forward to more.

Whoa! That's going to be killer!

We have made a ton of progress on Rancho Mahalo - but I've been bad about posting photos - the structure is now pretty much done, and moving on to do the finishing touches. Its coming together great!

Epic!

WOW...very nice and a substantial amount of space to really swing out. There are so many great home bar pictures here, so with your architectural abilities, I know you will have an awesome looking place in the future.

Edit-forgot to say I love that bar, it is beautiful!!!

"Oh waiter, another cocktail please!!!"

[ Edited by: VampiressRN 2014-02-09 10:50 ]

Thanks - now the real fun begins furnishing the space - just had Woody build me a great swag lamp for the dining area - pics of the build of the lamp here:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=10230&forum=18&start=360

Nice build and beautiful lamp! Can't wait to see how you finish it. But what you've got so far looks great.

Looks great- and exponentially larger than the original patio. A-frames make everything better....

Look forward to seeing more updates!

Looks like you are doing it right, keep posting updates.

Amazing!

Looking good! Any new pics?

On 2014-08-31 21:51, Koitiki wrote:
Looking good! Any new pics?

I was curious to know if this was your place? Ahahaha guess not. :wink:

So cool!

Very cool !!! Next time we go to visit my step daughter have to pay you guys a visit

Wow, you are quite the builder. Looking forward to your progress.

I was just recently listening to the Inside The Desert Oasis podcast, and I'm so stoked, because my old pal Von Franco and Erich Troudt are on there hanging out in The Hut and smoking cigars - making me miss those old times with Franco - and you guys start talking about his old bar & place, and I hear my name pop up!

Man oh man - so I realize I started posting build pictures of my place here a few years back and then just stopped. Jeez, life gets crazy sometimes, sorry. I came back here to check out Erich's Hut photos and it reminded me that I left this thread hanging - so I need to catch up. Hope you see this again Erich - the Hut is AMAZING! and I love that your dad is helping out so much - Claude is the best.

So maybe I need to backtrack a whole lot to many years back and put the pieces of the story together here and get it all up to date - this would be the perfect place to tell it to folks who would be into it, and I've got some great photos to share with fellow tiki fans - so stay tuned to the thread, and I promise not to disappear this time.

If you listened to that podcast - and I recommend you do at http://polynesianpop.podomatic.com Episode 10 - they are talking about Franco's old place, the half enclosed porch he set up, and the bar that Bruce Yoakum of B-One Tikis built - that I now have and built my place around.

This is the bar, and what Franco's old place looked like - man, some good times were had back there. We would hang out when we came to California to visit for car shows - which is how we met and became friends, through the hot rod scene.

Hey man, glad you are posting again. Can't wait to see the updated pics of your place!!

Thanks for the nice words about my hut. Those old pics of franco's place are great. It was always a good hang spot.

Erich

That payphone stand id the best.

Wow...such great unique Tiki items. Wonderful collection. CHEERS

Okay - now for the big reveal - here are some photos of the finished space.

The new home for the old bar - with seating area. The bar stools came from an old restaurant and came with the bar when I got it from Franco. I cleaned up and refinished the bar after it had been sitting outside in storage - and painted it with a sealer that deepened up the color of the bamboo. The chairs and couch were also the same one's from the old place - and I had them reupholstered. The entire space is built from cedar - from the floors to the roof and the big rough sawed beams that make up the structure and the huge beams in the ceiling. This is taken with a wide angle lens to get it all in, which makes it look massive - but it is a pretty big and airy space.

Here is a tighter shot of the bar area - the custom tiki mask carvings were done by Bill Collins on Kauai from palm trunks he harvested from the Coco Palms Resort. I'll post some some shots of the making of those a little further down. It was the first time he had done something like that. Then I had my friend here in Austin who is a neon sign artist make the brackets that hold them to the wall, that have gold neon tubes in them that shine through and backlight the masks, giving a really great ambient glow. The neon light is so warm and throws off a lot of the gold color out there on the wall. We framed out the area behind the bar with a darker bamboo, and covered the window to the kitchen in the big bamboo as well. I hid some purply-blue led light underneath the edge of the bar so it shoots some cool color down the bamboo of the bar

A view from the dining room table - another custom piece from a friend of ours who is a furniture designer out in Marfa in West Texas - a really big, modern design - also finished in cedar wood. You can see the underside of the swag lamp that Woody made for us hanging over the table with all the bits of shells, glass and bamboo suspended in the amber resin. We have dinner out here way more than we do inside - since the weather in Austin is so good for most of the year. Even in the hot months, it cools down in the evenings out there - between the big fan and the high ceiling. And since its all screened in, you can catch a breeze - and you don't have to worry about bugs biting you.

a higher view

From the bar looking back at the yard - those big geometric carved panels above the sliding barn doors are from Oceanic Arts - as is the Moai carving in the bottom right

Its a beautiful space to hang out in, and I love ending my day out there, watching the fireflies light up in the backyard and listening to some exotica or quiet slack key guitar... a Mai Tai or two helps too - since Austin still doesn't have a proper tiki bar, I had to build my own - but its open all hours and I always can find a good seat at the bar!

Awesome job! Great use of the space you had, wonderful warm feeling in the photos from the all the wood!

That is spectacular!

Gorgeous, man! Very sleek, stylish and modern. Quite different from many of the old-school, tiki clutter bars here, but you've really pulled it off. It's hard to go wrong with cedar lumber as the prime building material. The back-lit tikis are gorgeous. I'm quite taken with the dark matting on the walls. Did it come that color, of did you stain it? I'm definitely taking inspiration from you for my own build!

And hasn't it been a crazy, bumper crop year for lightning bugs? They're everywhere!

[ Edited by: Prikli Pear 2017-05-02 12:57 ]

On 2017-05-02 10:19, RanchoMahalo wrote:

Its a beautiful space to hang out in...

Understatement of the year! Wow. I soooooooo love what you have done.

Looks awesome! When are you having us over?

On 2017-05-02 12:54, Prikli Pear wrote:
Gorgeous, man! Very sleek, stylish and modern. Quite different from many of the old-school, tiki clutter bars here, but you've really pulled it off. It's hard to go wrong with cedar lumber as the prime building material. The back-lit tikis are gorgeous. I'm quite taken with the dark matting on the walls. Did it come that color, of did you stain it? I'm definitely taking inspiration from you for my own build!

And hasn't it been a crazy, bumper crop year for lightning bugs? They're everywhere!

[ Edited by: Prikli Pear 2017-05-02 12:57 ]

Thanks! yeah - tried to do something kind of modern and spacious to match the vibe of the house - a mid century ranch built in 1962, but still make the lanai feel very tiki - the big A-frame design matches the roofline and makes it feel period-correct.

The dark paneling behind the backlit tikis came that way - it was actually a roll of matting that was already sort of chocolate brown stained - worked great pop out those masks and have a different texture behind the bar from the rest of the lauhala matting on the walls.

Here are some cool "making of" shots of those wall tiki masks created by Bill Collins on Kauai

His truck out in the Coco Palms - I love these "ghost town" shots of the hotel in jungle ruins. When palm trees fell down on the grounds, he would go in to clean it up, and since he needs palm trunks to do his carvings, its a win win for everyone.

Starting to rough them out - I wanted a pair that sort of match, but not exactly - so Bill made some little differences between the two. The Marquesan style he designs in is really fantastic

Bill at the office - his little carving shack in the jungle.

cutting them away from the trunk

His little helper giving a hand

you can see some of the differences between the two here

And then the finished product - with final details carved and stain applied.

In place behind the bar - with neon lighting them up - we left holes in the eyes and mouth for light to shine through - and the rest gets reflected back on that dark bamboo creating a nice golden glow

Really top notch Pro looking bar....Very Clean yet has the right vibe. Also thanks for the carving shots of Bill. OGR

Awesome job! Spectacular tiki bar / room / hangout!!! Quality work!

[ Edited by: Danno 2017-05-04 16:53 ]

A couple of shots from the outside - showing the roofline and the prow off the center beam