Tiki Hut Builder's Got it Made in the Shade

Looking for a tiki hut builder isn’t exactly like finding a plumber. The options are not as numerous, in other words.

“It’s hard work,” said Jack Wylie, who owns the Pasco County-based Victori’a Tiki Huts with wife, Victoria. “That’s why there are not many people doing it.”

Lutz residents heading west on State Road 54 may have seen the sign advertising Wylie’s business. The company has built a number of tiki huts and tiki bars for business owners and homeowners in the Bay area as well as in locations such as Ohio.

In the case of the Buckeye State job, Wylie said his business created a tropical paradise for a watering hole in a town full of watering holes.

“It then became the most popular bar up there,” said Wylie, the Odessa resident whose work can also be seen locally at Whisky Joe’s in Tampa and Catches Waterfront Grille in Port Richey.

Wylie said he first started working with palm leaves living in the Fort Lauderdale-Miami are and selling hats for tourists. Back then, he said, Seminole Indians were the only ones making tiki huts. But he picked up the skills and now has been building tiki huts for several decades.

Wylie’s thatched roofs are constructed from cabbage palm, with the poles consisting of cypress logs that Wylie and his crew have to painstakingly harvest — often by driving hundreds of miles away. The cost for a common style of tiki hut is $2,300, Wylie said. It consists of a 10-foot-diameter single-pole umbrella, with table and three benches underneath.

“A thatched roof that is constructed correctly does not leak even one drop of water,” the business writes on its website. “The inside of the palm thatch will stay perfectly dry. We guarantee it 100%.”

Roofs have to be replaced every seven or eight years, Wylie said. The Wylies used to own Victoria’s Pottery in Clearwater, which Wylie said will open again in Odessa. 

When Wylie said he “builds” tiki huts, he pointed out that he actually takes a less hands-on role these days when compared to his crew.

“I’m 75 years old,” he said. “My wife doesn’t want me climbing up on roofs."