Tiki bars have somehow gotten swirled up with velvet paintings and shag carpet in American culture's fuzzy mai tai–colored memories—which is probably why little public outcry erupted recently when word trickled down that Trader Vic's, the fabled South Seas outpost at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, might soon be squashed to clear ground for a West Coast Waldorf-Astoria. Still, there are a few tiki-torch-lit souls out there who are busy preserving relics of our country's enduring fascination with the Pacific Isles.
Stuart Smith, a Navy First Class deep-sea diver who performed rescue and salvage missions in Hawaii and Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands during the eighties, is one such tropical historian. He and his wife, Aileen Öser, own Bikini Bar, a vintage rattan and surf antiquities emporium in Tribeca. While not technically a tiki bar, the establishment could certainly pass for one, albeit stripped of all—okay, most—of its kitsch. Sleek longboards line the ceiling; giant movie posters of the likes of Jane Russell, in a red sweetheart-neckline swimsuit (Underwater!), and a bikini-clad Ursula Andress (Dr. No) not-so-demurely cover the walls; and a projector casts up images of cresting swells and the daring men and women who glide across them.
But the real draw at Bikini Bar is the furniture: painstakingly restored rattan tables, sofas, chairs, and lamps that lend the place the warmth and glow of a Polynesian pit fire and rival any of the elegant rattan ensembles you might find at, say, The Raleigh hotel in Miami Beach. "I liked rattan because it's a vine and therefore renewable," Smith says of the palm-family plant, which can grow to a diameter of two inches and a length of more than 600 feet. Much of the world's supply comes from the Philippines. "The problem is, everyone's cutting the rainforests down, so what's being produced now doesn't seem to have the same quality or weight. That's why I deal with the old stuff."
Bikini Bar's inventory dates from the thirties through the fifties, the golden age of rattan, when Herb Ritts, Sr., the father of the late fashion photographer, had much to do with popularizing the look in the United States. His Los Angeles–based Ritts Furniture Company was a rattan powerhouse that outfitted resorts like the Indianola Lodge in Palm Springs and such films as Blue Hawaii. "There was just a boom across the country," explains Smith, who with his salt-and-pepper hair, weathered skin, and blue eyes bears a passing resemblance to a mid-career Paul Newman. "Especially after World War II, when all the GIs were coming back from the South Pacific theater—everything became tropical."
Like Ritts, other high-end brands such as Vogue Rattan and Tropical Sun often bought stock from Manila-based firms and then attached their own labels. But as Harvey Schwartz, a West Coast dealer and the author of Rattan, points out, "No one ever asks for a certain maker. They ask for styles." The most sought after—and therefore most valuable—are the pretzel models, where a side view of the arm reveals a pretzel shape, as well as those with multiple strands banded together on the arms and base. "Mostly I get the six-strand stuff, which is nicknamed 'The Godfather' because it's in those Cuban scenes and the ones in Florida with Hyman Roth," says Smith, whose rescue and salvage missions these days take him to dealers and estate sales up and down the East Coast. (Refurbished sofas start at about $4,500, and basic sets with side tables can run from $10,000 to $15,000.)
