Tropicana Lodge, Fresno, CA (motel)

Name:Tropicana Lodge
Type:motel
Street:4061 N. Blackstone Ave.
City:Fresno
State:CA
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:
Status:operational

Description:
Looks completely different due to remodel, it is now a Days Inn. Images can be seen on p. 27 in the Book of Tiki.

Tiki Shaker,

Looks like you hit the jackpot on matchbooks this week!

Here is the lounge at the Tropicana Lodge posted previously by Bigbro.

On 2008-03-28 20:31, bigbrotiki wrote:
Oh, and here is my candidate for the coolest red Naugahyde Tiki Bar: The Lounge at the Tropicana Lodge in Fresno. With burning modernist Waterfall. By Armet & Davis. :)

DC

[ Edited by: Dustycajun 2009-05-01 09:17 ]

Here's a previously unpublished rendering of the Tropicana Lodge:

It's cool, but the place mat is still unbeatable. It's fairly small in the BOT, but I got to blow it up for a two page spread on pages 24/25 of TIKI STYLE :D

Thanks Bigbro,

I was hoping you were going to add some of your images from the Tropicana.

Check out this postcard.

DC

Found this photo showing the Tikis at the Tropicana Lodge and a googie sign for the Tropics Room on ebay. Cool.

DC

Great to have a vintage armature pic in here!

Here is a Tropicana ash tray pic I clipped from the web a last year.

[ Edited by: abstractiki 2010-07-29 16:48 ]

I found a photo listed by El Mistico on flickr that show the two Tikis by the pool at the Days Inn (old Tropicana Lodge) as late as 2005.

Also some Tikis whithering on the parking lot wall.

I wonder if someone rescued the two pool Tikis??

DC

Greetings All,
Happy to report that several of the Fresno Tropicana Lodge's unique features are still in existence. The wonderful 8-shaped pool is still there, with the two tikis that once framed the diving board (which is gone). The decorative masks affixed to the rock wall are still there... as is a wonderful midmod clock in the pool area. But the real discovery, one that quite frankly - I did not expect - is that the "burning water fall" still exists... not much of a water fall, these days (I'd say more of a trickle), and no groovy lounge to accompany it, but it's still there. :)

hmd Tiki,

Thanks for posting the photos, glad to see that the Tikis and other elements still remain. Nice first post by the way.

DC

Mahalo to hmd Tiki for this much needed update. It's great to see that some artifacts still remain.

On 2011-07-28 13:06, hmdTiki wrote:
Greetings All,
Happy to report that several of the Fresno Tropicana Lodge's unique features are still in existence. The wonderful 8-shaped pool is still there, with the two tikis that once framed the diving board (which is gone).

Which, no doubt was removed due to fear of litigation if someone happened to injure themselves....damn lawyers. God, nowadays suck.

howlinowl

DC and hmdTiki, it's great to see those Tikis still exist - and those stone masks, too!

I did a better scan of that all-time greatest Tiki Moderne rendering...

...to demonstrate that the artist (WHO was he?) incorporated the five stone masks in his piece:

I never got a good shot of these guys, black stone carvings are very hard to photograph, like fern Tiki carvings they suck up the light, you need just the right angle of sun to model their features.

But I have always been fond of them, they have that pre-historic primitive look, like this one I own:

Found a great Tropicana brochure

Tikidon,

That is a great brochure, the old Tiki motel brochures are the best for info and fairly hard to come by.

I picked up one of the Tropicana postcards and did a few close up scans of the pool and the great Googie architecture and signage.

DC

Still there but now a Knights Inn and a little sleazier.
[

Here is an earlier rendering by Armet & Davis of the Tropicana motel/restaurant concept. The Googie sign on this one says "Motel" rather than "Lodge"

DC