MCM neighborhood tiki in Tacoma

Funny how you can find yourself surrounded by tiki objects. A year after we moved into our house, Jerry opened Jungle Fever Exotics a block from our house and sealed my gardening choices. Later while walking around, about a block and a half from home I noticed this lamp.

Knocking on the door the homeowner invited in the back garden where he showed me this guy.

He's about 4 1/2 feet tall and was carved by the man who built the house in the late 50's, made the lamp and it's Japanese style nail free gate.
Another day while walking four blocks south of home I ran across this split level.

By the front door and door to the garage were two of these.

They sure reminded me of the Popular Mechanics saw carved tiki god shown in the do-it-your self chapter of Tiki Modern.

The gal who lives there grew up there and bought it from her parents who owned it since the 70's when they bought it from the original owners who had it built in the 60's.

What's strange is I have yet to see any other MCM tiki (neighborhood not apartment) anywhere else in Tacoma, maybe I'll put an ad in the local Post Office newsletter to see if any of the carriers have seen any.

aloha, tikicoma

What would be really cool is if this house was owned by Jerry Sun!! :)

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

It is good to have an active urban archeologist up North. Now where are those "Chateau Tiki" apartments? :)

Good news! I've narrowed down the location of the Chateau Tiki apts to one of three landfills. Oh wait, that might not be good news. What I have found out from Polk is that the Chateau Tiki was in Tacoma and called that from 1967 to 1975 in '76 the name changed to Chateau apartments, no more tiki. Around ten years ago the whole area, blocks of modest homes and small apts, were bulldozed to make way for new townhouse/apartments, this is where the Chateau was at 4502 S. Cedar. While searching for info I did run across a half a dozen names of places from the 60's that look to be worth checking out though. Also it turns out that the local H.A. Briggs contractors built and, in most cases, ran the Kon Tiki and Polynesia(village) apts in Tacoma, Hawaiian Village in Lakewood, Kona Kai in Auburn and Diamond Head in Lacey.

I'm also giving credit to my first leads in Washington tiki to a woofmutt post from years ago that sparked my interest.
p.s. the current dwellers of the Kona Kai told me that they make their checks out to Hawaiian Village, not Kona Kai.

aloha, tikicoma

[ Edited by: tikicoma 2012-02-10 00:11 ]

Before Briggs built apartments he was building housing developments. This is his Rancho Vista model home from 1956 in Lakewood, WA just south of Tacoma, from the moai by the fireplace it looks like he had already been bitten by the tiki bug.

In the same general area is his Hawaiian Village apts. shown in BOT with what is believed to be a Barney West moai.

Unfortunately now the moai is gone. They cut short the bamboo to expose more of the moai and soon discovered the base had rotted away and was in danger of falling. From what I've seen all the tikis that Briggs placed at his apartments were just stuck in the soil, soil that around here can remain wet for months at a time. I asked if they knew who removed it to see if it could be salvaged and they told me that the workers who removed it had cut it to pieces with a chainsaw on site. :(

This happened about nine months ago but in the last few years all the tikis at the Kona Kai apts in Auburn were removed, one of the two tikis at the Diamond Head apts toppled and was removed (the other had its jaw drop off) and now this is gone.

aloha, tikicoma

On 2014-12-06 03:45, tikicoma wrote:
I asked if they knew who removed it to see if it could be salvaged and they told me that the workers who removed it had cut it to pieces with a chainsaw on site.

This happened about nine months ago but in the last few years all the tikis at the Kona Kai apts in Auburn were removed, one of the two tikis at the Diamond Head apts toppled and was removed (the other had its jaw drop off) and now this is gone.

As pictured in Tiki Pop:

(Thanks to Sabu and DC for the above image!)

Time marches on without mercy. Freestanding apartment Tikis are becoming extinct as their restaurant counterparts did many years earlier. I count my blessings for starting to photograph them as early (actually late) as the 1990s. In the next years, none will be left, and the world might have never known about this art form.