Hawaii in the brush lands

SOMETIMES Tiki rises up entirely apart from style trends. And it’s not just a coastal thing, either.

In the dry-brush lands of inland El Cajon, disaster gave birth to the tropical Tiki dreams of Sam Kuoha. His property was in the path of the 2003 fires that raged around San Diego. His yard was burned over and his rancher-style house damaged.

Hawaiian-born, Kuoha kicked through the ashes and decided he was homesick.

“People would come over and say, ‘You’re Hawaiian.’ But they would see a Spanish-style house ... [with] a yard of grass, weeds and fruit trees,” Kuoha recalls. “I didn’t want that anymore.”

Rather than leave California, he repaired and replanted with the aim of bringing the islands here.

It is a re-creation of the tropics both mild and wild.

Inside, the Kuoha family settled on calm Hawaiiana decor. Carved koa wood contrasts with off-white paint. A traditional tapa cloth wall hanging framed in bamboo contrasts with dainty orchids. Subdued floral print furniture coverings are paired with pineapple lamps.

Outside, Kuoha’s sprawling yard has been transformed into a mythical Polynesian playground -- a lush, equatorial garden with 40 varieties of exotic palms, 30 hand-carved Tikis, each of them expressing symbols of island life and geography. Twisting trails of faux lava flows begin on the high ground in back of the house with the theme continuing into the frontyard, ending in a fortress wall of lava.

A trio of thatch palapas rise in the yard, one of them offering a sunset view of the rolling lowlands to the west, with two more of the open-air huts in the works. A stream flows alongside the house with waterfalls. An outdoor kitchen will serve for luaus, along with a fire pit and stone benches.

“I wanted people to come and feel they’re in Hawaii,” says Kuoha, an actor and owner of a chain of martial arts schools. “I wanted to walk out here and say, ‘This is my island.’ ”

As workers finish up the last of the project, Kuoha walks the stairway that winds from his patio up a grade to his luau kitchen and then to his pool, where mosaic tile turtles and fish appear to swim in the water and where the diving board has been replaced with an overhanging waterfall.

“I’m home now,” he says.

-- John Balzar