Kona Kai, Wildwood Crest, NJ (motel)

Name:Kona Kai
Type:motel
Street:7300 Ocean Avenue
City:Wildwood Crest
State:NJ
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:
Status:defunct

Description:

This one was mentioned in a couple posts, but all the photos were missing, so I figured I would start a new one in Locating.

The Kona Kai Motel was built in 1968 by Lou Morey, who built a number of motels in Wildwood, with at least 3 in a polynesian / tiki style. Reports show that it had tikis hanging in every room. It became one of the more famous vintage motels in the area, but still meet the wrecking ball in January 2006.

Overall view of the motel, fairly close to opening date :down:

Close up of the entrance :down:

Note the tiki pole, tikis mounted on wall, fake palm trees, tiki torches and bridge over water feature!

Lobby :down:

Is that a tiki in the dark corner?

View of the pool from the balcony :down:

Guests lined up for the Luau BBQ :down:

For the ephemera...

A postcard from the 1970s :down:

Another from the 1980s :down:

And a brochure from the 1980s :down:

You'll note that at some point in the 1970s the sign was moved from the 3 story wing to on top of the office.

Here's a close up of it :down:

And here is a nice shot of it lit up at night :down:

Now, its time for the de-evolution :(

In the 80s, the tikis get their required bad paint job, fake palms look worse, and water feature filled in :down:

And then they're removed all together :down:

Lastly, its time to bring in the bulldozers :down:

I think that some one saved the sign. It is already missing in the demo photos, and I found this pic of the K which looks like it is wire up in someone's basement :down:

I saw a matchbook for this place, but can't find it now.

Amazing amount of visual documentation you unearthed there, Mo! From heyday to decline, the complete history. And all on the internet!? Together with Google street view and that newspaper search engine you explored so well, urban archeology can now be practiced by the armchair explorer.

Don't you wish that all those obscure Tiki places you dug up in the Florida gulf region had that kind of photographic track record!

It is noteworthy though that, just like with the Motels in Myrtle Beach shown here recently, the execution of the Polynesian theme was somewhat subdued in Wildwood when compared to some West coast places. The East coast was clearly lacking outfitters like Oceanic Arts and Sea & Jungle. That's where Witco and Orchids of Hawaii came in.

wow...nice, but sad storyline of the de-evolution of this great place

On 2009-11-07 09:45, bigbrotiki wrote:
Amazing amount of visual documentation you unearthed there, Mo! From heyday to decline, the complete history. And all on the internet!? Together with Google street view and that newspaper search engine you explored so well, urban archeology can now be practiced by the armchair explorer.

Don't you wish that all those obscure Tiki places you dug up in the Florida gulf region had that kind of photographic track record!

It is noteworthy though that, just like with the Motels in Myrtle Beach shown here recently, the execution of the Polynesian theme was somewhat subdued in Wildwood when compared to some West coast places. The East coast was clearly lacking outfitters like Oceanic Arts and Sea & Jungle. That's where Witco and Orchids of Hawaii came in.

Yeah, I would kill for these kinds of photos for just a couple of the places in St. Petersburg! Luckily, Wildwood had a pretty big following that resulted in a lot of documenting in the 80s and 90s. The only thing - I just hate that term "Doo Wop"!

I think the Kona Kai here had the heaviest tiki decor in the area, and they really only had about 3 tikis visible from the outside.

I stayed here once 7 or 8 years ago. The lobby did not look like the photo here. It still had the cool exterior, and I think my room had a Tiki mask in it, other than that it wasn't too high on the TiPSY scale.

I also just found 2 Richie Fahey photos that were taken in a Kona Kai room, both showing the tikis that were there.

On 2009-11-08 17:16, Mo-Eye wrote:
I also just found 2 Richie Fahey photos that were taken in a Kona Kai room, both showing the tikis that were there.

When I stayed there, my room didn't look this cool. This looks like it was one of the bigger ones, but now that I'm seeing those masks I remember we had ones on the wall exactly like that.

[ Edited by: donhonyc 2009-11-08 18:08 ]

Worst sound ever, slurp of an empty tiki mug through my straw!!!

[ Edited by: hang10tiki 2015-01-01 19:31 ]

Nice matchbook. Another borrowed image, this one from Albert Gee's Poly-Asian.

DC

…or: