Tiki Bars (Home)

The Forbidden Hole is the home tiki bar of Cool Breeze located in Omaha Nebraska. It can be found on Instagram using #theforbiddenhole or @todd_wyatt

Not that long ago, in a neighborhood not that far away… Tatooiniki started with an impulsive purchase of a large, beach-themed, inlaid-wood bar top—salvaged from a South Jersey mansion—in 2014, shortly after we moved to the Jersey ‘burbs from Brooklyn with our family.

We had nowhere to install it at that point, so it sat in a corner of our garage draped in some moving blankets. A couple of years later, once we had done some work to make our formerly-leaky basement watertight, we began the process of designing a bar around our bar top. Peter began building in earnest in 2018. The bar made its debut Labor Day weekend 2018 and has hosted monthly parties ever since, even as its decor and furnishings are constantly evolving.

Tiki Palace is the home tiki bar of the Palazzo family: Alex, Melissa and Nick. It is in the covered back patio of their home in Granada Hills, California. They converted the 21'x12' space into a tiki bar in June 2016. The name is a nod to their last name; Palazzo means "palace" in Italian.

The bar is surrounded on two sides by the house, and on a third side they have built a movable sliding wall that is closed when the bar is in use. The movable wall is covered with paintings drawn by the family's daughter and inspired by The Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. The hand-built bar, ceiling, and part of two walls are all covered in thatch, the other walls are covered with abaca cloth and reed. The bar seats seven comfortably, and a lounge area seats an additional four. A half wall with a counter looking out to the yard can handle four more standing patrons. There are several tikis, tiki masks, and a puffer fish. The exterior walls are covered in bamboo with some bamboo trim running along the ceiling that separates the the patio from the yard. At night the bar is lit with warm yellow lighting.

Several times a week, the family sits in the lounge area to talk, listen to tiki music, and occasionally have a Mai Tai or two. About every 4 to 6 weeks they throw a party with tiki cocktails, beer, and wine. For larger parties the lounge area becomes the food area for a buffet, and the lounge seating and picnic tables are moved into the backyard, which is lit with string lights.

The bar is a work in progress and will probably never be finishedthey are always on the lookout for more Polynesian decor, with plans to add another decorative light and mask from Oceanic Arts. There are also plans to extend the capacity by adding pavers in the backyard for outdoor seating.

We have tiki parties twice a year and have been doing Quarentiki FaceBook live thru the pandemic. Built in bar in our den. The den is a sometimes Board Game room and sometimes Tiki Bar. Rum collection somewhere around 90

You enter the room through two wood-screened folding partitions that swing outward.

I have a wet bar and all my alcohol in the front room, so this is less of a functioning bar space than a lounge area to drink, hang out in, and where I can display all my tiki collectibles.

The first incarnation of this home bar started up in Portland, Oregon in 2011-2015 in a rental apartment that I had painted the walls and ceiling in a gingerbread brown. Now we are back down in Los Angeles and renting this house and I've opted not to go all out with dark paint or wall coverings.

I have several swag lights. The puffer fish light I made back in my old Rumpus Room Days and the eyes are taxidermist glass eyes meant for a cougar! The other lights are vintage lucite spaghetti that I picked up here and there.

The rattan bar and stools I found up in Oregon.

The orientalia style rattan hutch was found at the Pasadena City College flea market back in 2007 and I refurbished it up in Oregon and found an appropriately sized lower hutch to set it on.

Between the hutch and the fireplace is a 5-foot-tall carved Moai KavaKava Man that I picked up in Portland. I remember buying him for a great deal at a women's clothing shop my wife was checking out. I carried him three city blocks back to the car while passers-by cheered me on. That was a great day! Now he is my official mascot in the Hoodoo Room.

Thanks for checking out my space!

Vince and Karen's exotic tropical hideaway. This concept encompasses most of the living space of our Los Angeles area home. It has been evolving over the last few years, as we visit additional tiki market places, thrift shops and yard sales. It is named after our former dog Smokey. She dug out a special place in our backyard bamboo stand to create a special hideaway for her. Bamboo Ben did and excellent job on the mug shelves.

It’s a 20 year old 10x10 garden shed I converted into a backyard tiki bar instead of tearing it down. It’s just a few years old now. I am still going through some iterations, but my basement tiki bar is starting to side track me

Private home tiki bar in the northern suburbs of Chicago.

The Kākau Canteen is a heavily-themed home tiki bar located in the Columbus, OH area. It draws inspiration from Trader Sam's, Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar, and Adventureland at large.

The Hut is the home tiki bar of Erich Troudt. The construction for the Hut was started in 2012, and the inside was completed in 2016. The Hut is in a freestanding 16' x 20' building in the backyard of Troudt's home. It is filled with lauhala matting, tapa, bamboo, and custom wood trim around the walls and doors, carved by Troudt himself. The hut houses a collection of over 300 mostly vintage mugs, 200+ Coco Joe's, Witco pieces, matchbooks, tourist tiki pieces and historical nautical pieces.

It has a Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room corner, bamboo furniture, barrels, fishnets, glass floats and many tikis, including a 7-foot-tall Maori piece from Jungle and Sea Imports, and an 8-foot-tall Papua New Guinea statue. Many of the tikis, shelf supports and other pieces were carved by Troudt's father. All the modern amenities such as wifi, television, audio/visual equipment, and a refrigerator are present but hidden.

The outside is currently under construction. Next to the hut is a lean-to with a "trading post" feel, featuring a cannon, lava rock, a large moai, ship lamps, nautical pieces and barrels. There will soon be a dock, a crashed boat, and more lava rock.

Lalotai; Den of Monsters, is the home bar of Jonathan and Allison Chaffin, part of Horror In Clay World Headquarters. Home of Hundreds of tiki mugs with a heavy pop art and horror theme. Constantly evolving and changing, birthplace of Mugcrate and Inuhele; Atlanta's Tiki Weekend and the Atlanta Tiki Homebar Tour.

AKA: "The Tabu Tiki Lounge"

This is the home tiki bar of David "Duke" Carter and Amy Carter of Munster Indiana.

The Carters take the concept of a home tiki bar to another extreme. The entire lower level of their California modern-style home in Munster, Indiana, is a South Seas fantasy: thatched walls, bamboo wainscoting, bamboo furniture, hula girl lamps, framed Polynesian prints, tikis large and small, and a massive vintage mug collection, much of which is featured in their book, Tiki Quest: Collecting the Exotic Past (published in 2003 under David's tiki-collector pseudonym, Duke Carter). They call the basement the Tabu Tiki Room, the result of a long-shared obsession with tiki culture, especially its visually rich architecture and graphic design.

An Eclectic collection of many years of rescued vintage treasures. Motto, "It's always warm at Lush Gardens"

The Fuzzy Smudge is the home tiki bar of Mark & Debbie Whitehead, created in April 2014 in their home in Olalla, Washington, just across Puget Sound from Seattle and Tacoma.

Regarding the bar's name: "When we bought the house, there was a grease and hair smudge on the floor in the Fortress of Solitude (the shop). There was a lot of discussion among us and our various friends about what it was. Some thought is was a rat, some a cat, some (including me) a squirrel, and one smart-ass said it was a wombat! I finally pointed out that it was my shop and my fuzzy smudge, therefore it was a squirrel. Sometime later, when we were trying to come up with a name for the bar, we both hit on the Fuzzy Smudge at the same time. So, the place is named after a dead squirrel."

The room's colorful look was inspired by bright aloha shirts. The decor is a mix of tiki, pirate, nautical and Navy elements. The room opens onto a patio, with a built-in music system providing music inside and out. Some of the lamps were made by Mark while recovering from heart surgery. There is a real shark (dead) hanging above the Shag-inspired doors.

The bar is a full-service bar, with over 180 drinks on the menu, including plenty of options for those who don't want a tiki drink.

In a galaxy far far away called Florida I search for Tiki, good grub, Disney Adventures, geek fun and a shot of Rum/Whiskey 😎👍🗿🌴🍹

Our small 8' x 12' bar in SF's foggy Sunset district.

Thunder Cove is my home tiki bar and home office

Ho'i Hou Ke Aloha is the home tiki bar of Trey and Tammy Goodwin in Maryville, Tennessee, just south of Knoxville. The bar and living area is a 2000 -square-foot space and was created in January 2015 in the basement of their home. The name means "let us fall in love all over again" in Hawaiian. The couple also host on Airbnb. Look us up. We have three rooms Disney Haunted Mansion, Place of Refuge Hawaii room and Stranger Things an 80's themed room.

The name was inspired by a painting done by Clee for me which was based on a Llama Witco magazine rack!

The Drama Llama Lounge came about when I saw the good 'base' for a home bar and just had to purchase it. I then had customer pieces carved for it from Bosko and Mischief Motu, re-upholstered it, carpeted the edges and base with the world famous PDX carpet, and did custom decal work on the bar top. Mixed together with decor, it fits perfectly into my cozy little studio apartment.

The Headhunter in San Diego is owned by Jonny & Ilze Guilmet.

The 18' tall A-Frame was already built when Jonny had Bosko come over and help design and build the fascia panels along the roofline and the crocodile head at the peak that really put it over the top. The orange underpanels under the roofline are hand-silkscreened from an old Bali Hai New Orleans menu cover graphic.

Jonny has festooned the interior and surrounds with 25+ years of collectibles, including an impressive collection of Bali Hai headhunter mugs along the back wall.

This bar has its own instagram account and was featured on a youtube episode of Jim Stacy's The Tiki Show.

Vitu Waitui is a shipwreck of both nautical and tiki stuff washed up on to the hills of eastern San Diego. Vitu Waitui is ever evolving and seems to have a life of its own. This is the caretaker's second attempt at a home tiki bar. The first iteration was the Sharkbait Bar. Between rounds of cocktails in this nearly five hundred square foot lounge, visitors often enjoy billiards, video poker or classic arcade games.

This is the home tiki bar of Jordan Reichek, an animator who worked on Ren & Stimpy starting with the pilot, and has continued to make a career in animation.

This bar is actually version 2.0, since the first Booze Cave was a temporary set-up in his rental home.

Pictures below are from 2017, leading up to his auction at La Luz de Jesus Gallery where he sold off a huge portion of his collection -- many of the pieces being purchased to outfit the new Max's South Seas Hideaway in Grand Rapids Michigan.

The centerpiece of the bar is a 19-foot-long wave-shaped bar-top with over 1,200 vintage matchbooks from Polynesian restaurants embedded in sand and epoxy resin. Also of note are the many swag lamps, including one that makes use of a sea turtle shell and has a resin fish inlaid into the shell.

My Tiki Bar is an elaborate annual pop-up re-skinning of my basement bar. Each year, I add new features and details to the build. I cover major surfaces with real bamboo panels, bring out my mugs, etc. for Tiki decor, and set up huge amounts of real and (mostly) silk tropical flowers and foliage. I install a rock fountain, working volcano, and my two talking robot parrots. I finish the effect with Phillips Hue lighting to bring it all together, as well as to facilitate special effect scenes coordinating with wind machines, the parrots, or the volcano.

Hale Manu is the home tiki bar of Mo and Justin Bird. They created the bar in their Nashville, Tennessee home in April 2012. The room had a major upgrade in 2016 when they covered the walls and ceiling around the bar with bamboo, reed and lauhala matting. In addition to the actual bar, the room houses their tiki mug collection and a seating area. The bar itself began as an ordinary bar that the couple stripped down, clad in bamboo, and added carved tiki corners by Lake Tiki. Lake Tiki also made a Hale Manu sign for the room's entrance. The couple found a Witco bar with matching stools and wall hanging on Craigslist, which now serve as a buffet. Craigslist also yielded three Witco knockoff tiki head stools which are used at the bar.

The Birds love to make drinks for themselves and their friends (favorites are Navy Grog and Jet Pilot), play records, and have an impromptu dance party now and again.

This is probably the earliest fully realized home tiki bar still in existence. Amazingly, it is still in pristine original condition and open to the public.

Nestled in the basement of this 1886 Queen Anne mansion is a delightful surprise. Upon moving into the home in 1937, Howard Hall sought to create a space to entertain friends and business partners. At a time when life in America was becoming less formal and basements were utilized as living spaces, Howard created the Tahitian Room. Decorated with a bright South Seas theme, the room features a map of Tahiti’s location on the floor and dioramas. With the flip of a switch, the sound of a Tahitian rainstorm is simulated through water dripping on the tin roof ceiling (just like Don the Beachcomber had at his venue when Howard had visited it in Hollywood).

Howard’s fun-loving personality can be seen throughout the room, as can his business sense. The room was used not just to entertain, but to make a lasting impression on his business associates who came to visit his Cedar Rapids home.

The Tahitian Room continues to make an impression on Brucemore visitors today and is open to public tours.

This is the home bar of Bosko Hrnjak, begun in 1990 in Escondido, California. It is an A-frame design and in the interior is housed one of the tall interior support tikis from the now long-closed Kapu-Kai (Rancho Cucamonga). This was Bosko's very first tiki bar buildout. He was also married here with Beachbum Berry officiating the ceremony.

The Sandy Bottom Lounge is the home tiki bar of Justin DuPre and Greg Clapp who have produced the Tiki Kon in Oregon since 2013.

This basement bar is in northeast Portland, near both Munktiki and another home bar, The Lowbrow Lanai. It was created in 2007, when the couple moved into a house that already had a bar featuring wood salvaged from a Coast Guard ship called the Vance that had been decommissioned in the early 1970s. The room is a blend of nautical and tiki, with much of the decor coming from thrift shops. There is a "hut" area with Chromecraft seating, a kegerator that looks like it might have come from a ship's galley, and a mix of whiskey barrel and bamboo furniture.

The Sandy Bottom’s centerpiece is a fantastical chandelier (reminiscent of the Enchanted Tiki Room) crafted from an upended papasan chair, a grass skirt, and a pendant swag lamp nested with fake tropical birds and flowers—all glowing with a colored LED light system Justin DuPre “Frankensteined” together himself.

The Lagoon of Mystery is an outdoor tiki bar in Central Texas begun in January of 2017. It is not complete, because tiki bars are never completed. It consists of a 65' covered patio along with a swimming pool surrounded by mature sabal palm trees. A detailed build-along blog may be viewed at the first link provided. My YouTube show, "A Moment of Tiki," may be found at the second link and my "Lagoon of Mystery" Instagram account at the third.

Aotearoa Tiki Lounge is the home tiki bar of Brian (Mr. LDT) and JoAnne (KeKona) in Columbia, Missouri. It was built in the backyard of their home in November 2016; the first iteration of their home tiki bar opened in 2005. They've pulled inspiration from their travels to tiki bars around the world, and especially from their travels to New Zealand, the Land of the Long White Cloud.

Ken's Tiki Lounge is the home tiki bar of Ken and Gloria, in Lomita, California, near Los Angeles. It was created in 2004 in a converted garage in the couple's home. It was inspired by the very earliest days of tiki-themed restaurants, and the couple has sought to preserve that style as much as possible. The lounge contains a bar down one side, a hidden home theater setup, and extensive mug collections. It also contains some mirrored balls and disco lights in a nod to Kelbo's ballroom. They are avid collectors of Polynesian art and artifacts, and are especially proud of the many pieces recovered from now defunct tiki palaces such as Kelbo's, Bahooka, Trader Vic's, Don the Beachcomber, and several other lesser known establishments. It may alternately contain a rattan dining set or pretzel furniture depending on the event. Aside from the electrical wiring, all construction and decoration inside and out was done by Ken and Gloria. They entertain family and friends in the space, and it is their little hideaway at home. Fatutu, a Tiki tOny original tiki, sits atop the roof and welcomes visitors to "Ken's Tiki Lounge: the best little place no one ever heard of!"

The Playboy Mansion (the original one in Chicago, not the current one in Beverly Hills) had an indoor swimming pool room that was decked out in tiki, including Witco masks and a large, modernist moai.

Hefner purchased the mansion in 1959 for $400,000 with plans to build this pool in the basement. The city would only allow it after Hefner convinced officials it was for personal, not commercial, use.

A spread in the March 5, 1961, Chicago Tribune magazine described how Hefner turned a car-service area into a lounge, which was positioned slightly lower than the bottom of the pool: " ... in the manner of an aquarium, permitting a view of the swimmers and pool activities."

Discussed on page 43 of Sven Kirsten's The Book of Tiki.

The Below Decks is the home tiki bar of Steven D. Matthews, in Los Angeles. The bar is in the former garage and patio of his home, and has now become the home's living room, with all entertaining beginning and ending there. The bar's focus is cocktails, well made ones, drawing inspiration from the works of cocktail experts Beachbum Berry, Dale DeGroff, Gaz Regan and Martin Cate. The bar's name is a nod to The Sailing Ship Columbia at Disneyland. Design-wise, Steven's inspirations include The Enchanted Tiki Room, Swiss Family Treehouse, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at Disneyland; Tiki-Ti; Trader Vic's; and Oceanic Arts. The current canine mascot of The Below Decks is his sweet Veda-Roux.

This is the home bar of Doug Thornburg.

First opened as the High Street Taproom in 2014 and centered around the bar built from scrap material, the former garage has worn a number of faces before finally evolving into the Torture Chamber it is today. The room has been a bar to show off experimental beer, house aged and infused spirits, and at one point an operating speakeasy. The bar has built an ever growing list of unique house cocktails, and one off (often tiki inspired) beers on draft. Pulling inspiration from lifelong passions of skateboarding and horror films, the dim dungeon of a bar is full of treasures waiting to be found.

This is the monster-themed tiki bar belonging to Jorge and Liz Romero.

A small home bar where we enjoy time with family and friends and share our love of Tiki and Tequila. Our bar contains a lot of tiki love and memorabilia from our travels so we consider it to be "Eclectiki".

When my husband surprised me with a tiki bar for my birthday, it reignited my interest in tiki and began a long, never ending quest. It's definitely a work in progress.

This is the home bar of Ron Ferrell and Mickee.

Wolf Lair Castle (aka Wolf’s Castle) is a 1927 storybook mansion built on 3.3 acres in the Hollywood Hills to resemble a Norman castle.

Milton Wolf built Wolf Lair in 1921, overlooking Lake Hollywood.

He also had celebrated architect John Lautner design a gate house adjacent to the castle, decked out in teak and redwood with a green granite fireplace. There is a two-bedroom suite in the guest cottage designed like a Tiki Room. It has a bamboo roof and bare-breasted native girls painted on the windows.

The musician, Moby, owned this property for a time but sold it in 2014 for $12.4 million.

My basement Tiki bar includes a home theatre, game room, bar, plenty of art by SHAG and many other wonderful Tiki artists, and pandas. It also houses my home office for my day job.

Inspired by our trips to Hawaii, Akua (roughly translates to "Island Spirit" in Hawaiian) - is the home bar of Justin Peterson and Erin Sullivan. Work was mostly completed by April 2020. The bar area is part of the larger lounge / living room, inside our 1954 mid-century modern home in west Orlando. Featuring a hand-painted mural, custom shelves, mugs, and artwork & nicknacks from Oahu.

Bloody's is my home tiki bar. I started small versions of it in 2006, but I'm currently finishing a more permanent home on my deck. It over looks a small subtropical garden and koi pond, and has a smaller tiki hut for watching the fish and sipping beverages.

My tiny (9' x 11') bit of paradise here in San Francisco.

Eclectic tiki bar with salvaged bar and backbar mixed with new and old authentic arts and crafts. Started in 2010 but never done. Some souvenirs from various SoCal locations as well as the odd PNG mask here and there. Working on getting some diner booths set up in this 21x21 foot room with vaulted ceiling because, well, we have room.

based around a witco bar, the Sandy Clam is a work in progress

The South Pacific Room is the home tiki bar of Derek and Roxanne in Vista, California (north of San Diego). Derek is masterful with a router, and has built many of the room's features, including the bar and a large table. The room is filled with detailed trim pieces carved by Derek, and they have made most of the lamps themselves, too.

Even better than having the know-how is sharing the know-how: The South Pacific Room hosts regular instruction sessions to teach folks how to make their own lamps and routed pieces of art.