“If you can’t get to paradise, I’ll bring it to you!”– Donn Beach

I will never look at a Tiki mug or Hawaiian shirt the same way again. I used to think Tiki was kitsch, but not anymore. Here’s the story of how I found a rare 1940’s book of Don the Beachcomber documents with some Chicago mob flavor, in Riverside.

One of its destinations ended up being a Beverly Hills auction house.

We’ll need ambiance for this. “Alexa, play Hawaiian music.”

It must have been serendipity or fate. My 94-year-old stepfather had passed away the year before and I moved in with my elderly mother to help her. One stormy morning, I went outside to feed the feral cats living in my stepfather’s workshop. As I moved some old blankets where they slept, I noticed an old rusty utility shelf, and, on the lowest shelf, a large red leather book with gold embossed lettering. It was layered with so much dust, I couldn’t make out the title.

After carefully wiping it off, I could read the name: Don the BeachComber, Inc. Curious, I couldn’t Google it fast enough! Little did I know my adventure into Tikidom had just begun.

Enter Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt, aka Donn E. R. Beach-Comber and then Donn Beach, thanks to a legal name change.

Donn’s beloved grandfather was a rum runner who let him tag along as a child of seven in 1914, on adventures to exotic lands. His father was an oil rigger during the oil boom, and on his sixth try, finally struck a gusher in Mexia, Texas.

When Donn was a young man, he was given a choice: college or travel. Donn chose the latter, and circled the world twice before landing in Hollywood, broke.

He brought home many Polynesian treasures that would eventually decorate his first bar. After a couple of lucrative years later, he added food to the menu and moved to a bigger location across the street, where he met his wife, socialite Cora “Sunny” Sund.

It became an exclusive restaurant with a dress code, filled with Hollywood elites including Rudy Vallee, the Marx Brothers, Mae West, Howard Hughes and Charlie Chaplin.

Donn brought in an air of escapism during the Great Depression and after Prohibition. His Polynesian-themed restaurants were legendary, complete with rain effects from a hose on the corrugated metal rooftop. He thought it would make patrons stay longer if it was raining. Brilliantly it worked. A colorful Myna bird would walk the edge of the bar, screeching, “Give me a beer, stupid!”

After Pearl Harbor, he proudly joined the the war effort. He became a captain in the U.S. Army Air Corps, then joined a convoy that started in Casablanca, near French Morocco. He earned two Purple Hearts in World War II.

While he was gone, Sunny ran the business, which prospered and expanded, but when he came back from the war, everything had changed. His wife had partnered with Joey Jacobson and Mike Fritzal, owners of the famous Chez Paree Nightclub in Chicago — a well known hangout for Al Capone and his cronies. It’s rumored they pushed Donn out of the business.

Divorces can be messy, and sometimes it’s best to just move away.

So Donn went to Hawaii and opened a new Polynesian-themed restaurant and the International Market Place, with his now famous Banyan treehouse office, which is still in Waikiki today. He was honored with a House Resolution Tourism Award in 1957. Donn had many more seafaring adventures until he died in 1989. He left a lasting legacy as the legendary forefather of mixology.

The book of rare documents I found reads like a diary, documenting the genesis of all things Tiki and the Don the Beachcomber Restaurants. Even Riverside’s Mission Inn Hotel joined the Polynesian craze with the Lea Lea Room, a bar and dance club in the 1960’s.

I found the book in spring 2018, and sold it in December at Profiles in History, an auction house in Beverly Hills. The anticipation and buzz from some avid collectors in the Tiki world was exciting. I was hoping for a bidding war.

But when the moment came, the gavel came down quickly. The auction was over in a second. The book went for $2,250. Not quite what I had hoped for, but enough to have a great Christmas.

There are Tiki events and new venues still springing up all over, a Tiki “re-revival” of sorts. Just Google Tiki, and take those Hawaiian shirts and muumuus out of the back of the closet.

We can sure use Donn’s kind of whimsical escapism, even a Mai Tai or two, in this unnerving, constant “Breaking News” political climate.

Wait! … I don’t want to kill the ambiance. Mahalo!

— Riverside author Cindi Neisinger is writing a screenplay about Donn Beach, founder of Don the Beachcomber restaurants. She serves on Inlandia Institute’s Advisory Council.