Polynesian Murals and Dioramas - Vintage & Other

This thread is created as tribute to Polynesian murals and dioramas. Whether vintage or otherwise, artists have been hired to take the decor of a restaurant, bar, hotel or home a step further than the polynesian decor we think of first. Sure, a "tiki bar" would be lacking at best if it didn't include bamboo, thatch, tiki sculptures and carvings, velvet paintings and exotic hanging lights, but... this is about that next step that few establishments have taken. Through murals and dioramas, some establishments blend physical components and murals creating a "view" and transporting the lucky customers out of their chair and into a distant place. There are amazing examples of this phenomenon still alive today, yet unfortunately as polynesian restaurants and Tiki bars disappear through the years, sometimes this unique art, considered "tired" and worn out, is the first to be whitewashed, renovated and ultimately destroyed.
The mural artist is alive and well today, but those vintage artists from the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's have a style that resonate with the vintage quality us Tiki lovers crave. A mural is more than a painting on the wall, it becomes the wall, it becomes the space. The most amazing murals allow the viewer to "walk" into the setting. Some of the best murals utilize physical foreground pieces and painted details, as well as lighting to accentuate the distant scene they represent.

Here in New England, we TC-ers are lucky to have three remarkable and unique mural examples still alive. The murals at the Kowloon in Saugus Massachusetts wrap around two walls and span nearly 60 feet. The distant Island view and actual lighted volcano effect are realistically enhanced by sculpted palms and an actual sailing ship that you "sit aboard".

At the Bali Hai in nearby Lynnfield, Mass. Photographic image lightboxes enlighten the dining room with scenes of Hawaiian Luaus. Who wouldn't want to be at a real Luau!

And just this week discovered by a combined effort of sputnikmoss in Portland and Granite Tiki in Nashua - the South Seas Polynesian Restaurant in Newton Massachusetts still maintains amazing vintage painted murals spanning two walls and encased in vintage bamboo and thatch decor. A truly amazing discovery.

I hope Granite Tiki will post more of his great shots!

How many more of these exist today, and how many of these "dioramas" have recently been destroyed (The Kahiki was the greatest loss of a magnificent diorama). Sams Seafood in Sunset Beach California is being reopened and we all hope their extensive murals will be rejuvenated and celebrated with the renovations. Other establishments feature new murals as does Thatch in Portland Oregon, whose dedicated owner Robertiki strives to create a vintage feel with the amazing Velvet murals he has commissioned.

This thread is for celebrating those long gone memories, undiscovered treasures, and new creations - the murals! Please post info about the celebrated artists that have painted them and new muralists painting today! Let's celebrate the mural in our favorite Tiki joints- that amazing artwork that transports us to where we would like to be!

Jade Island backlit Murals, more pictures on CriTiki.

Murals at South Pacific in Newton, MA

Great post. I can't believe we never found the South Seas when we lived in Boston. That place looks amazing!

On 2007-02-22 23:05, Sneakytiki wrote:
Great points being made about the murals. I posted a rather odd location here once, the Bremerton Naval Station Library. It has a gorgeous mural dating from the 30's to 50's with topless wahines and sailors in a tropical paradise. I left there in 95 or so and have long worried that political correctness in the military will have it painted over due to the topless Polynesians. I believe anyone can get a pass to go to the library there. I hope one of our WA members will photograph it some time. Bremerton is about 40 min's from Seattle and had some tiki apt's as well.

Wow! Somebody go there, quick, and check and document this before it's gone!
And maybe check which Tiki apartments are still intact. I heard the Kona Village (BOT p.226) is gone (or de-tikied?). But what about the Tongaroa (BOT p.219) ? And then there was the Polynesia...

Makes me wonder if this Navy town had other Polynesian pop features in public buildings...

Someone photograph and post that Library mural please!

Wow, great murals...Damon's in Glendale has some nice ones too.

I have some pictures from the Aku-Tiki Room at Andris Waunee Farm in Kewanee, Il, that show some of their murals that I need to U/L & post.

Can't wait to see those murals freddie...., and any of you so cal t-cers, if you could post the Damons murals !

Here's a quick taste of the Damon's murals:

...if only that big guy wouldn't be blocking half of it! :wink:

OH, I just thought that head was apart of the picture. See how the guy is resting the shell on his head. :wink:

[ Edited by: teaKEY 2007-02-23 18:37 ]

Here's some from the Aku-Tiki room I took on New Years eve.

That is so HOT ! ....the top one, that is.

No, but really, never seen anything like those! That's why I love Polynesian pop: The variety with which different people interpreted the tradition in so many individual ways. Great.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2007-02-23 19:47 ]

Excellent thread ! Old postcards & brochures have great documentation of murals that existed in
restaurants no longer with us...Here's a few examples, starting with some early views of murals from
places past:

Aloha Room- Heathman Hotel, Portland, OR (mural by Portland artist Georgia Lee) :

Bob Brooks' 7 Seas, Hollywood:

Clifton's Pacific Seas, Los Angeles:

Curry's, Miami Beach :

The mural behind the stage in the Surf dining room, Honolulu Harry's Waikiki- Chicago:

Zamboanga, Los Angeles ( the mural behind the stage in the upper right image) :

Later views from places no longer with us:

The Polynesian Room at the Bali Hai- New Orleans:

The mural behind the stage in the Hawaiian dining room, Hawaiian Village- Cherry Hill, NJ

closer view:

Hawaiian Village, Tampa, FL:

Hut- Ft. Myers, FL:

And some recent photos from the Waldorf Hotel- Vancouver, Canada, 2005

This Hawaiian Islands mural greets you as you descend the curved stairs from the main level of the Waldorf ( where the Tahitian Room lounge is located), to the Polynesian Room downstairs:

The amazing mural in the Polynesian Room, with imagery from the Eugene Savage paintings for the Matson Lines:

This mural is behind the bar on lower level, just outside the Polynesian Room:

Thank you for your work, Mimi! Let's see what I can come up with then...

Let's start with some classic style ones:

Clifton's has probably the most mural postcards of any old place in circulation to this day:

Then there was the Kona Kove bar at the Stardust bowl, this pic is in the BOT, but I zoomed into the back bar mural:

Here the remnants of the Underwater mural at the Chin Tiki, Detroit:

And now for some less conventional, more off the beaten track watering holes. I love this place because everthing seems self made, no O.A. or Witco or anything recognizable in sight:


Heddy's must have been "different" cause it showed some nudity in its mural:

For the next unusual mural home I chose Tiny's Hut, up in Walnut Creek, CA. While the outside sign was cool, the building itself could have easily been called "Tiny's Bunker":

..and the inside had no exotic decor what so ever...but wait, what's that to the right?:

A damn fine mural, and one WITH a Tiki, which is a rare occurence for murals. Looks like Tiny blew his budget on the mural, and then had no money for thatch and floats left...

And last not least, this color atrocity, the Tahiti Lounge in Jacksonville, Florida. The color scheme speaks of late 60s, and if anybody knows when drop ceilings were introduced, we know a date for the beginning of the decline of Tiki Bars...

..fittingly, it has Witco on the walls, but what happend on the wall behind the stage? Once we zoom in, we can differentiate some details, but some remain cryptic:

An example for the wide variety of mural art. The foursided modern Moai are the coolest thing about this place.

Great thread! To me the best murals are the ones that have 3D elements in the foreground that lead into the painting - making it hard to distinguish where the wall starts! :)

People interested in this should also do some googling on "Trompe l'oeil" - Trompe-l'oeil is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects really exist, instead of being just two-dimensional paintings. The name is derived from French for "trick the eye", from tromper - to deceive and l'oeil - the eye (from Wikipedia). Search for Trompe l'oeil and tiki brings up nothing, but search it with terms such as tropical, jungle, exotic etc etc and you find some amazing art.

Look at these:

Hey hewey - I agree completely - foreground details or elements completely create the illusion of depth. A well executed "Trompe l'oeil" is amazing, often causing the viewer to touch the mural, just to understand what they are seeing!

Here is a mural I did for a teacher's dining room in a middle school. A little Trompe l'oeil can be seen on the left wall, where I continued the view in a faux arch/window. Despite the main wall was sheetrock and the adjoining wall was cement block, the scene seems seemless and tricks you into thinking you could walk beyond the walls.

Wow jp....beautiful artwork. You are quite the talent!!! :tiki:

Votre Tromp is tres bon, bien sur, Sir. Here is an example of fine foreground pieces (already posted this in Locating Tiki), at the Kona Kai in Philadelphia: The tattered shutters that frame the mural really sell the idea of a view out of the window:

A different view:

A close up of that:

But that is not all, the palm trees, the huts, and the horizon were all painted on separate sheets of glass, to create a 3D effect, and these different layers were lit individually, so the whole scene could be gradually dimmed from day to dusk to night.
I believe the Hawaii Kai in New York had a similar installation.....NEXT: Dioramas!

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2007-02-24 15:11 ]

Good thread. GROG really like seeing all the murals inside the tiki bars. Hopefully someone with a camera will post some more photos of the nice murals inside Damons. GROG not have digital camera.

And when they do, take a close up of that one GREEN Tiki which is the only detail NOT copied directly from the classic Eugene Savage menus. Post it on this page, and you will see WHERE it comes from...-though we will never know how and why.....it's a so-called mural mystery.

JP that is awesome! Very nice work indeed.

Bigbro I love that effect with the shutters, it frames it really well.

I have very fond memories of the Kowloon . . . while attending Boston University, I celebrated my 21st Birthday there in 1967!

I bet you feel more like you do now now than you did when you came in.

GH

[ Edited by: GentleHangman 2007-02-25 09:49 ]

On 2007-02-24 15:44, bigbrotiki wrote:
And when they do, take a close up of that one GREEN Tiki which is the only detail NOT copied directly from the classic Eugene Savage menus. Post it on this page, and you will see WHERE it comes from...-though we will never know how and why.....it's a so-called mural mystery.

I think you're talking about this one Sven. From Damon's in Glendale - these were taken last week on my visit to California. Some of the best murals I've ever seen:

These are along the wall in the main dining room:

This one is along the back wall as you're exiting the restaurant:

Here's a few more.

These are from Julians in Ormond Beach, FL - the shots are not too good but the mural just about covers the back half of the restaurant. It's truly amazing.

This one is a sighting off of US1 just blocks from the Mai Kai. A friend called me as the demolition was taking place and told me to get over there and take pictures. This was an old hotel and this mural must have been painted around the pool area. Very nicely done. I was literally asked to leave the property but not before my zoom action caught these photos:

Yee-Haw & Aloha,

The World of Tiki Kiliki

[ Edited by: tiki_kiliki 2007-02-25 15:01 ]

[ Edited by: BlackFish 2009-09-08 04:12 ]

Yes, great addition to this thread! That last mural work looks very contemporary, Tiki revival style. But the Julians mural: A classic! I cannot think of another mural of that size still in existence today. Amazing!

And sooooo....WHAT now IS the "mural mystery" that I am alluding to in my above post? Look and compare, what does the keen eye of the urban archeologist notice in the Damons mural, in comparison too.......?

Cool. The green tiki is a mural version of the tiki pole at the Kona Kai in Philadelphia (seen above on the same page in this thread).

[ Edited by: BlackFish 2009-09-08 04:15 ]

Indeed! The mystery is: How does a Tiki design that is from around 1960 pop up in the the reproduction of a 1930s mural?
We can only guess that the artist who executed the mural sometime in the early 70s had also worked with the architectural firm of Armet and Davis, who from their Los Angeles offices designed restaurants nationwide. They did some of the Stephen Crane Kon-Tikis (like Montreal and Portland) and also the Marriot Kona Kais, among them the Chicago and Philadelphia ones.

So the mural artist felt a Tiki needed to be added (always a good notion), and used the blueprint below (or a photo, or a rendering) from the Kona Kai job. Why he chose GREEN is a different mystery!

Not to derail this fine thread, but here's a closeup of the Philadelphia Kona Kai column tiki to add to Sven's blueprint. (Speaking of... can you post more of that blueprint over in Locating Tiki, purty please?)

The full blueprint shows just two more of those type of column carvings (they actually were panels covering structural posts) and will be in Tiki Modern (they are all pretty similar). My new book will also show the full cover of Monkeyman's brochure the Tiki ABOVE comes from...which (not to be a stickler) is actually a different one than the one in the mural (compare eyes and mouth). The Tiki above is carved from the rendering on the LEFT in the blueprint, while the mural/bar Tiki I posted on the previous page is taken from the rendering on the RIGHT. They both are deceptively similar.

And now: Dioramas. Taken from the century-old European tradition of creating miniature pictures of landscapes with model buildings and trees to create a 3D effect, Polynesian pop dioramas went one step further than murals. Like the big taxidermy animal habitats in old Natural History museums (which I love), they are a combination of interior landscaping (fake palm trees, rocks, etc) and murals. It all started with places like Bob Brook's Seven Seas and Don The Beachcomber creating fake rainforest windows with tropical downpours, even adding live exotic birds and monkeys in them:

This the cradle of Polynesian pop, Don the Beachcomber Hollywood, at its 25th anniversary, with the rainforest diorama in the back ground.

I got to experience the Kahiki rainforest, especially effective in the bitter cold of the Ohio winter:

Then there were also the miniature dioramas, depicting whole islands, like this one behind the bar of the Bora Bora Room:

an attempt to get closer:

I have no documentation of the Royal Hawaiian Laguna Beach dioramas, when I found them, they were already dilapidated and uncared for, but a few miniature huts were still standing, does anyone have pics?

The most effective ones are of course the full room environments, like this one at Butlin's Beachcomber in England:

And, as my last mural example: Poly pop murals invade the bathroom, in 1964:

Marlite Murals: So "Tiki Modern"!

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2007-02-26 12:10 ]

I just wanted to ad this Damon's History info I just received to this thread that shows the Damon's murals, because it is rare that a mural artist is known by name:

".....In 1937 he sold the candy stores and founded Damon's Steak House on Central Avenue in Glendale. It soon became a favorite with those seeking a hearty steak and a great drink.

The South Seas or Polynesian décor theme began almost by accident. A single palm tree in the middle of the original Damon's inspired the gradual addition of artifacts and furnishings. The move to Brand Boulevard in 1980 made that transition even easier with the addition of the outrigger hanging above the main dining room and -(!) the beautiful murals painted by the late Bettina Byrne.(!)-

At the time of the move to Brand Boulevard long time bartender Moe Elliott was promoted to manager. Moe not only had the distinction of being the senior member of the staff (since 1956) but he also created the Damon's Famous Mai Tai. Moe still visits to make sure his time honored recipe is being followed accurately.."

Absolutely brilliant, brilliant thread, JP. (Hot-rodded to a fascinating new dimension with BBTiki's inclusion of the diorama aspect.)

Mahalo for focusing attention on this "fine arts" aspect of Polynesion restaurant decor!

Cheers and aloha,
SOK

Don't forget about the diorama at the Royal Hawaiian, Laguna Beach R.I.P.

This "mural-like" painting that greeted the guests

Fun topic! That last painting reminded me a bit of this one that I had posted in the Hawaiian Hut thread:

Okay, it's missing the color and I don't know if it techically fits, but this was on the side of a building in San Francisco.

Here is the entrance of the bldg. that has the images CheekyGirl posted.

Great thread it was time to reacquaint myself with a look at it again, it's way fabulous start at page 1 and maybe some of you have some pic's to add to it? I would love to see more pictures here on TC ...

It may soon be a victim of the wrecking ball, and so far I've failed to photo-doc it, but the now closed Bowl-O-Drome in Mo'ili'ili (mauka of Waikiki) has an alley wall with a kitschy fantasy mural from the 50s dipicting the Royal Court at play in lush tropical foliage, replete with ancient bowling activities and menehune stealing fish from the King's catch.

This now little known artifact is a cultural treasure on many levels, and is a true work of well done art.
It's bad enuf to loose this beautiful old school alley, but the dbl. whammy of losing the mural = too sucky.

I'd give anything to have even one pic to post.

Is that the one with an A-frame entrance on the other side of the freeway? Who is going to go there with a camera and tripod and document it. C'mon you whacky Waikikians!

Bigbro - you're probably thinking of Kam Bowl in Kalihi, but unfortunately it was knocked down a couple of months ago to make way for . . . a Walgreens. The Bowl-o-Drome still stands, but it's closed.

There wasn't much tiki at Kam Bowl anyway, but it did have mid-Century vibe in abundance, and I miss seeing that big A-Frame while driving home.

I know many on this forum will not like this, but Jimmy Buffett concerts have had some great murals over the years. The lighting changes, sun set stars com out and light go on inside the native huts. They are really well done and well drawn.

I found these photos on the internet.

The Hawaiian Inn in Daytona, Florida:

Here's a home bar with a terrific mural on the far wall:

On 2008-04-21 09:56, GatorRob wrote:
Here's a home bar with a terrific mural on the far wall:

Who's home bar? That's really nice.

There's a huge mural at The Tradewinds Tropical Lounge in St. Augustine, FL.
You can kinda tell it's big by all the 8x11 photo frames that line the bottom of it (see second photo):

On 2008-04-21 10:15, Swanky wrote:
Who's home bar? That's really nice.

Agghh, you had to ask! It took some head scratching to remember, but now I recall. It's at the home of the guy who directs Spongebob Squarepants. Here's a link to his info page. About halfway down, there is a link to the pics of his home bar, the Halekahiki. Also, thanks to Digitiki, here is an audio tour of their bar (it's the last segment). So you can look at the pictures and listen to the tour. :)

[ Edited by: GatorRob 2008-04-21 10:53 ]

Some more from Damon's in Glendale, CA.