In the summer of 1999 while visiting Hawaii, I bought a key chain that translated my given name, Robert, into its Hawaiian equivalent — Lopaka. Back home in Chicago, my partner Ray and I had recently bought a 1920′s bungalow that had the basement converted into a 1950s-style faux-wood paneled lounge equipped with an “L” shaped wet bar.
The house was in great shape but needed a lot of cosmetic work. I didn’t care for the overall style (it was a bland bungalow) but I loved the neighborhood and wanted that lounge. While in the process of getting things fixing up, an elderly woman knocked on the door. To our surprise, she was the previous owner of the house from the 50′s to the 70′s. We invited her in to look around. While down in the basement, she told us that her husband had done the lounge construction. She looked around, put her hands on the bar and “Oh, this was his room”. I could just imagine the two of them with their friends sitting at the bar listening to records on the old Magnavox while drinking highballs and smoking Pall Malls. During the long cold Chicago winters, it was the warmest place in the house.
Having just finished getting my Visual Communications degree, I wanted to set up shop to do multimedia production out of the house. Since the lounge was going to used for a music/media studio, it was necessary to come up with a catchy name that would encapsulate both the bar/hangout vibe and the workstation/studio. After reaching the point of total frustration due to a major case of creative block, Ray quite simply suggested “Lopaka Lounge.” I immediately loved it.
One day my friends Christine and Sally were visiting. Christine picked up a guitar and started plucking out Ziggy Stardust. Sally piped in and started singing. It suddenly dawned on me that a karaoke machine might be a good thing to have…just for fun of course. Imagine my surprise when Ray gave me one for my birthday. It was one of those cheap kinds that had the speaker built into it but I plugged it into my amp. Back then, I sang in the car all the time and I know I was singing on key. The first time I tried the karaoke machine, I sounded awful. It’s totally different when there isn’t a preexisting vocal track to sing along with. It kind of sat there and collected dust for a while. Eventually, I warmed up to it and decided to have a party (Inviting Christine and Sally of course). The party was a huge hit and most everyone sang.
The Lopaka Lounge turned into the hangout. It didn’t matter if there were thirty people or just three, we would stay up all night signing one song after the other. Eventually, a disco lighting kit and tons of karaoke CD’s were introduced. We literally had a nightclub in our basement. I have absolutely fallen in love with singing and do it every chance I can.
The day finally came when we sold the house and moved to Arizona. Since the Lopaka Lounge website had been around as long as the basement bar, it was decided to keep it up virtually online as a blog. One of these days, we’d like to build a casita off the main house here in Arizona and call it Lopaka Lounge West. I still have all the lights!
See all the good times in the lounge.
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