Why did you move to Tucson? 350 days of sunshine!
I’ve known Kym back when she lived in Seattle. This was a couple years ago. And then Kym moved away, she moved to Tucson. I have to be honest, I really didn’t know that much about Tucson. I knew two things, It’s in the desert, and Kon Tiki is there. I finally made a trip down to Tucson and met up with Kym and she showed me her home. It’s perfect combination of Tiki, Atomic Age and Mid-Century Modern!
Kym was correct, there’s over 300 days of sunshine in Tucson and she has a tiki lanai in her back porch to enjoy all that sun, but during the summer, it gets hot, really hot, to the point where you just stay indoors. Kym’s got that covered, she has not one, but two bars in her home. And did I mention that her living room is tiki themed? Kym has a name for her home, it’s called Chiqui-Flamingo Casa and her is her story…
What is the tiki scene like where you live?
Kym- It’s very active! Quite a few of us in Tucson have home tiki bars so we’ve had a few tiki parties at each other’s homes. We also meet on the first Thursday of each month, usually at Kon Tiki but we’ve also been known to go to other cocktail lounges around town who were happy to serve us tiki drinks.
We also have a large state wide tiki group, Tiki AZ, that I’m lucky to be one of the 4 admins and I handle the activities for the Tucson area. (I get a lot of ideas and help from our local members.)
What brought you into the tiki lifestyle and how long has it been part of your life?
Kym- Don’t laugh, but Jimmy Buffet back in the 80’s was our gateway drug. We went to a few shows, bought the CDs, and traveled to Key West and all over the Caribbean islands to experience that lifestyle. Along the way we discovered tiki bars. We built our first cheesy ramshackle bar and started hosting huge parties. We eventually moved from the burbs into the city (Seattle) and built a basement tiki bar with an outdoor lanai and hosted small parties there. We started to travel more and visited many tiki bars and tiki weekender events.
After a lifetime in the Seattle area we moved south to Arizona and completely tiki-fied our 1941 pink Tucson house. We joined the local tiki group and the rest is history.
Can you talk a little bit about all three of your bars and your tiki living room?
Kym- My house is named the Chiqui-flamingo casa (loosely interprets as little pink house) so it sounded logical to name the tiki lounge the Chiqui-flamingo lounge. The bamboo bar that we had in Seattle came down south with us (purchased in Fremont at the beloved Deluxe Junk) and it was our only bar for quite some time so it carries the same name of the house. I’d like to replace it someday with the elusive Witco bar I’ve been searching for.
As we started developing our outdoor lanai we needed a second bar so we saw an ad on Facebook Marketplace for an amazing bar for sale locally. When we went to pick it up we found out that the owner of that bar was a good friend with our mutual friend Sweetpea in Seattle. Since then we’ve invited her to other events, and she joined in for our annual Mrs. Roper crawl. Small world! We named that bar the Watusi bar because if there’s going to be any dancing going on it will be out on the lanai! I also needed outdoor seating and my friend in Seattle, Dawn Frasier, posted that she had some vintage six band bamboo furniture with fabric she designed available so I nabbed it. I just needed to get it from Seattle to Tucson, so I paid a guy with a truck to move it all down and everything looks fantastic out there now.
As far as the living room, we already had the mid-century furniture but I’ve always wanted to have a certain type of vintage mid-century bar and came across a photo online. I posted that photo and put it out to the Facebook hive mind to see if anyone in the area had ever seen one around.
Someone claimed to have seen one in a Phoenix antique mall similar to it so I proceeded to look into it. I called the mall a few times until I got someone on the line who knew what I was talking about. The vendor had just taken it out of their booth and had it in their garage so we arranged to drive up there and see it, then bought it on the spot. I originally thought I’d have it recovered but the Asian theme of it fits in and I named it the Miss Wong bar, after the Tretchikoff painting. It also came with an amazing mirrored shelf with martinis painted on the mirror, so it’s the more formal bar that I serve classic cocktails like martinis at. I always say that you don’t have to stumble far to get a cocktail in mi casa! 😉
How far have you driven to buy something tiki that you saw online?
Kym- I had driven from Seattle to Tumwater for a Witco Hula Girl but the drive to Phoenix from Tucson for the Miss Wong bar is now the furthest at around 2 hours each way.
What is your favorite Tiki drink?
Kym- A well prepared authentic recipe 1944 Trader Vic’s Mai tai. To me that is the perfect tiki drink and I’ve had my share of terrible ones like we all have.
What is your favorite Tiki bar? Not including your own!
Kym- The Mai Kai. We’ve been lucky enough to go twice, during visits to the Hukilau. It’s incredible and I can’t wait to go back to see how it’s been restored!
Outside of great drinks, what do you think are essential elements in creating the perfect Tiki environment?
Kym- To me, lighting is a big deal. I’m a big collector of vintage lamps and I think at last count we have 69 mostly vintage (and some handmade tiki) lamps throughout the house and lanai. There are 29 lamps alone just in the tiki lounge that thankfully I figured out to turn them all on with the touch of one button.
I don’t have any white walls and a lot of them are fairly dark because of the intense sun in the desert, so my house is lit up with soft low light LED bulbs in various colors. I also think music creates a wonderful atmosphere, and music is playing in my house 24 hours a day.
For a tiki atmosphere– no white walls, dark and mysterious, interesting soft and colorful lighting, and the right music all set the mood.
What does the future hold for you and your home tiki bar?
Kym- We are going to redo the electricity on the lanai in a few weeks. If you look behind the bar you can see way too many lamp cords plugged in a la Clark Griswold. Good thing there are only LEDs out there!
We will also be tearing up the carpet in the lounge and redoing the floors. And as mentioned before, I’m on the forever hunt for the ultimate unicorn–the Witco bar and stools to replace our first bamboo bar inside. We will also be adding a water feature at some point outside near the lanai.
