populuxe

I am proud to say our tiki statues have found a new home. When we moved from our Brooklyn brownstone to our apartment on Roosevelt Island, we no longer had a backyard. So we were forced to get rid of our mod patio furniture and tiki gods. We donated our tikis to the newly renovated tiki/conference room at Campfire, an advertising agency where my husband works.

Mike Monello is my husband Brian's boss at Campfire. He is a very good friend of ours and he is also an avid tiki collector. Mike was kind enough to let me snap some photos of the tiki room and he also agreed to answer a few questions for my blog.

What got you into the whole tiki craze?

I’ve always been fascinated by world-building — the idea of creating an immersive environment that puts people into a story and encourages behaviors and experiences that are outside everyday life. Theme parks, Las Vegas, themed restaurants, etc. I also love mid-century modern design, so Tiki and Polynesian pop is a perfect hybrid of the two.

Grayson and mom love tikis

More tikis after the jump

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How long have you been collecting tikis?

I haven’t been collecting for all that long. I was a broke, starving filmmaker so it wasn’t until 1999 when I had a little success that I actually started collecting tikis.

Why a tiki room for campfire?

I think if you look at the work we do, the best of it is about storytelling and immersive environments, so tiki fits right in. When I was operating out of Orlando, FL, my little satellite office was filled with tikis, and I really missed that when I moved to NY. When we moved into our current space, we had this horrible little conference room in the middle of the floor with no windows or natural light, so we needed to do something to the space and I saw it as an opportunity to go tiki crazy.

Where did you get your tiki decor?

Most of it was either purchased by me, or given to me. Once you start collecting something, people tend to give you that thing on holidays and birthdays, so a lot of it was given to me by good friends, which adds to the good vibe of the space.

What are some of your favorite pieces in the room?

It’s hard to pick out favorites! I would say the wood carvings are my favorites and I would like to add more. There are a ton of talented carvers in the Tiki Central community and ultimately I would like to own at least a piece by all of them. In the room right now, I have two poles by Bosko, one pole by Wayne Coombs of Mai Tiki, some smaller pieces by Leroy at Oceanic Arts, and a wall fountain by Ken Pleasant, who carves in the Witco style. I also have original art by Greg Rebis and some prints from Scott Scheidly (Flounder).

Of course there are also a couple of YOUR tikis in the room as well. I’m sure you miss them, but I think we’ve given them a nice home!

Tell us about the sofa and chairs. who designed them? where did you get them?

The sofa and chairs were designed by Outer Limits. I didn’t want to put rattan or wicker furniture in the room as I really wanted to capture a modern vibe — the suburban savage kind of feel. I also didn’t want to have any classic mid-century modern design because every ad agency and creative company seems to have a set of Barcelona chairs or Eames pieces in their office. I love the classics, but it’s practically a cliché to put them in an ad agency these days. I was surfing eBay, looking for something vintage and I came across a couple of Cosmo Chairs from Outer Limits. They were exactly what I was looking for, but when I called they were discontinuing the chair and the two on eBay were the last. I convinced them to make four more and a sofa for me and they did. I love the furniture in the room and I really Outer Limit’s designs in general. They were great to work with and I’m sure I’ll be buying from them again. As a side note, if the Cosmo chair looks familiar to you, it was the chair that Dr. Melfi had in her office on The Sopranos.

Where did you get the bamboo wall trim? How is it installed?

The wall trim was from Master Garden Products. I have to give massive credit to Bret Kane and Lisa Erwood here at Campfire, who really made the room happen as fast as it did. Bret researched everything, was heavily involved in the look and feel of the room, and even put in the hours to put it all together. Lisa managed everything and without the two of them, it would probably still be an ugly room with no windows and boxes of tiki mugs piled up.

Bret and Gregg Hale, one of my Campfire partners, attached the bamboo wainscoting and trim to the wall with a nail gun one evening after the office closed. I measured and tried to stay out of the way. That was the same night I found the Cosmo chair on eBay, so that tells you how much “help” I was in the process.

What else do you have planned for the tiki room?

I have a puffer fish lamp I need to hang, and I want to put a cool modern coffee table in the center instead of the small bamboo bench that’s there now and replace the side tables with something matching as well. Any suggestions? I want to get more tiki carvings and I’d love to find the right little bar to finish it off. Most of the bars I’ve seen are too large for the space or just not the right look. Also, we need to have an opening party with real Mai Tais!

Is there anything else you would like to add?

What started as a deadly depressing room to hold a meeting is now the room everyone wants to hold their meetings. Even people who were skeptical about what we were doing to the room have said they love it, so I’m really happy with the way the room came out.

Thank you so much Mike for sharing your tiki room with us. Retro Info readers, do you have any suggestions for Mike's tiki room? Any ideas for the coffee and end tables? Where can he find a small tiki bar? Thanks.