Interesting excerpt:<p>Kirsten: Yeah, I think it’s so interesting how the hippie children looked down on previous generations that grew up between the World Wars, even though the fantasies of those previous generations also had elements of proto-hippie culture. Both the pre-Tiki and the Tiki generations had this fantasy of free love and living the leisure life. Their children made it much more a reality, yet they didn’t realize that their parents had the same kind of dreams.<p>The bohemian aspect, in terms of style and decor, was clearly part of the beachcomber look—the guy in tattered clothes who built his shack from found objects and natural materials like bamboo and driftwood. It became this escapist thing for urbanites to go to these places and feel bohemian for a while. If you look at 1930s photos of restaurants like Trader Vic’s in Oakland or Don the Beachcomber in Los Angeles, these places were full of jetsam and flotsam that didn’t exist in the normal, mid-century home at the time.
I never realized that this had such a deep history. I thought it was just an aesthetic cribbed from island cultures. I did not know there was such a concept as "Tiki Lifestyle", and how it originated as a counterculture in America. Very interesting.
The Tahitian Village subdivision in Bastrop(!), TX.<p><a href="http://www.tahitianvillage.com/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.tahitianvillage.com/index.html</a><p>Admittedly, the only real remainder of the Tiki lifestyle are street names and the styling of the HOA building.