Art Stenmo with some of his Tiki collection at his home in Huntington Beach on Friday, March 31, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)

An antique kidney-shaped side table holds a Tiki lamp in Art Stenmo's home in Huntington Beach on Friday, March 31, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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A waterfall is adorned with a Tiki statue in Art Stenmo's back yard in Huntington Beach on Friday, March 31, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Part of Art Stenmo's Tiki collection that is displayed at his home in Huntington Beach on Friday, March 31, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Tiki carvings from various South Pacific locations are part of Art Stenmos' collection in Huntington Beach on Friday, March 31, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)



One of the Tiki statues in Art Stenmo's back yard in Huntington Beach on Friday, March 31, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Art Stenmo in his Tiki room at his home that features an antique Tiki bar, right, in Huntington Beach on Friday, March 31, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Part of Art Stenmo's patio that continues the Tiki theme in Huntington Beach on Friday, March 31, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)

You know the look: Rough-hewn Easter Island sculptures. Lauhala mattings. Torches. Lava rocks. Palapas. Bamboo everywhere. Fountains with exotic waterfalls.

Most people associate the tiki look with their parents’ generation, or even their grandparents’. From Trader Vic’s to “Gilligan’s Island,” tiki as a cultural marker is indelibly associated with midcentury America.

But if you’ve been paying attention, you know that tiki is making a comeback. Since the mid-90s, tiki subculture has morphed from sub rosa to vibrant in California, Florida and other parts of the country.

In 2000, when Sven Kirsten’s “The Book of Tiki” was published, it became the unofficial tiki bible, launching the revival in earnest. Websites such as tikicentral.com act as meeting hubs and marketplaces for tiki freaks to connect, debate and barter.

In Orange County you can find tiki and neo-tiki style in many restaurants and bars, from Don the Beachcomber in Sunset Beach to the Royal Hawaiian in Laguna Beach, which reopened with full tiki regalia in 2016 after a four-year hiatus, and the kitschy Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar in the Disneyland Hotel. And scattered around older neighborhoods in Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa and other O.C. cities are well-preserved 1950s and early ’60s apartments in tiki style.

At the 1960s home of Art Stenmo and his wife, Tina Borgatta, in Huntington Beach, a growing passion for tiki led to a dramatic redesign of the backyard and parts of the interior.

The couple took possession of the property in 2000, and Stenmo immediately wanted to re-think the yard and pool. “Originally I wanted to do our house in sort of a tropical motif. But I didn’t know it would take off like this.”

Stenmo’s obsession started small. “There was this place called Aloha Joe’s Collectibles. He specialized in tiki and toys like vintage action heroes. I saw these tiki mugs and thought, ‘Hmmm, these are really interesting.’ ” Stenmo remembered similar mugs at a relative’s house when he was a kid. “All those childhood memories started flooding back.”

Then Stenmo’s career took a fortuitous turn: He became the Hawaii recruiter for the University of La Verne and traveled to the island state twice a year. “I became enamored with Hawaii,” he recalled.

Stenmo’s collection started small, with the mugs and salt and pepper shakers from Trader Vic’s. From there, things took a serious turn: He added two sets of limited-series mugs by respected Tiki artist Shag and a few of Shag’s lithographs, one of them signed by the artist, and the collection kept growing.

The pool and yard were tiki-ized gradually, Stenmo said. “It just kind of evolved over time. There are some wood carvings that we found in Mexico; we saw a guy carving tiki stuff on the side of the road.” Stenmo started going to Oceanic Arts in Whittier, considered the Mecca of tiki by aficionados. Opened in 1956 by tiki importers Leroy Schmaltz and Bob Van Oosting, it has been the go-to supplier of tiki for Trader Vic’s and other tiki bars and restaurants. Even the “Gilligan’s Island” designers reportedly paid them a visit.

Opened in 1956 by tiki importers Leroy Schmaltz and Bob Van Oosting, it has been the go-to supplier of tiki for Trader Vic’s and other tiki bars and restaurants. Even the “Gilligan’s Island” designers reportedly paid them a visit.

“We were fortunate to get a couple of Leroy’s original carvings,” Stenmo said. “We have two of them in the backyard.”

One of them is Stenmo’s showpiece. “It’s about 4 feet tall and he had nicknamed it ‘Old Sad Eyes.’ It has kind of droopy eyes. We put it where the tiki bar is.”

One of them is Stenmo’s showpiece. “It’s about 4 feet tall and he had nicknamed it ‘Old Sad Eyes.’ It has kind of droopy eyes. We put it where the tiki bar is.”

The vintage backyard bar dates from the early 1950s. Stenmo had to trade half his tiki barware collection at Aloha Joe’s Collectibles to get the coveted relic.

The yard’s water fall feature was “sort of serendipitous,” Stenmo said. “When we were remodeling our pool, we wanted to put a fireplace there. But the (building) code wouldn’t allow us to do that. The designer said, ‘Well, why don’t we put a water feature there?’ He put a tiki sculpture on top. I thought, ‘My gosh, why didn’t I think of that?’”

Matt Marble of Costa Mesa, a tiki expert and leader of The Hula Girls Band, says Stenmo’s place is one of many tiki yards he knows of in Orange County.

Marble has been intimately involved in the tiki resurgence and knows its major figures. “Sven Kirsten and his friends were really instrumental. They started having tiki parties in his Silver Lake yard, and he documented tiki in Southern California before it was really appreciated and many (architectural examples) were disappearing.”

Marble acknowledged that tiki isn’t a faithful adaptation of any specific South Pacific culture but rather a playful appropriation of some of its art and artifacts. “Tiki was kind of a bastardization of several cultures: Rapa Nui, Hawaii, Papua New Guinea.”

American servicemen returning from the Pacific theater after World War II had formed a sentimental attachment to the places they’d been stationed, which Marble said brought tiki into the mainstream in the 1950s.

“Then there were movies like ‘South Pacific,’ and Hawaii achieved statehood in 1959, which allowed Americans to travel there much more easily.”

Baby boomers didn’t embrace the look, Marble said. “But in the ’90s you saw a new interest from the next generation, and things popped up like the Lava Lounge in Hollywood.”

Today, tiki has attracted a large, vibrant and sometimes fractious community of enthusiastic followers. Stenmo says he has found the scene so intense that he now keeps certain activities at arm’s length.

“With any subculture it starts to get a little strange when you’re really a fan. People argue back and forth about what’s tiki and what’s not. There’s a little drama, so I backed away a bit.”

He laughed.

“But I really love my yard. I wouldn’t change a thing.”