Strange Things Are Brewing At A New Nightlife
Spot In Hollywood, Fla.

By: Claire Trageser

First, there’s the drink served at the lounge, the Mystic Water Kava Bar (www.thekavabar.com), which opened in October. Instead of your typical beer and cocktails, this bar offers kava drink, an elixir mixed from the powdered root of the tropical kava plant, which is said to produce mild euphoria and relaxation.

Then there’s the bar’s décor. To give Mystic Water a tropical, exotic feeling, the bar’s owner, Avigdor Weber, had an unusual idea: He decided to build a tree in the middle of the bar. And not just an ordinary tree—he wanted a Banyan tree, which is famous for its extensive network of branches and intricate patterns of roots flowing down its trunk.

Weber asked Stefan VonFouts and Scott Hickey from the 01 Eden Design Collective if they could make it happen.

“We were going through a lot of different ideas for what material we could use,” VonFouts said. “Finally, we were like, ‘It’s gotta be foam.’”

They asked spray polyurethane foam (SPF) contractor Garry Biederman from Pompano Beach, Fla.-based Southern Coatings, Inc., if he could make Weber’s vision come to life.

Biederman said he was up to the challenge.

“Someone called here looking for something foamed, and I’m always the man to spray it,” he said. “I’ve done waterfalls and caves in the past, so I have a lot of experience putting that stuff together.”

Despite Biederman’s experience with unconventional SPF projects, the Banyan tree would still be a tricky look to pull off. Biederman worked with VonFouts and Hickey, who welded stainless steel rods together to make a frame for the tree. They covered that frame with a metal mesh window screen to provide a base for the foam.

Then Biederman arrived, ready to make magic happen. Although Southern Coatings has been in business for 30 years and usually works on standard roofing projects, when Biederman talks about the Banyan tree he sounds like an artist.

“You just have to foam by eye and know how to work the gun,” he said. “I sprayed at different angles to get the different looks. Down here in Florida, there are a lot of Banyan trees, so I could keep them in mind to model this one.”

Biederman turned the pressure down on his GlasCraft Probler gun to spray the ER Systems 3-pound foam at a low volume. For six hours, he worked the gun, and with the help of the designers, achieved the desired effect.

“It was a group effort, because they’d say, ‘Put a little more here,’ or, ‘Bring the foam out there,’” Biederman said.

“Gary did a lot with the foam’s texture, and really filled it in nicely,” VonFouts added. “We explained how the bark needed to look grown over, or knotted up in places, like it had history. The foam really had a texture that was like a tree, so we didn’t have to mess with it at all.”

VonFouts also rolled up newspapers to make hanging vines, which Biederman covered with foam.

“It’s amazing to take this discarded material, and then when you put foam over on top, it becomes beautiful,” VonFouts said.

Because the tree stands in the middle of the bar, overspray was a big issue, Biederman said.

“We literally had to cover the whole bar,” he said. “But we did it, and everything stayed clean.”

Fire safety, especially in a nightlife spot, is extremely important, so VonFouts spent a lot of time and money working with an Orlando-based coatings company to develop a specialized thermal barrier hard coat formulated especially for the foam.

“I had a sales rep come all the way down just to show us how it was applied and used at all the amusement parks in Orlando like Disney World,” VonFouts said.

After Biederman applied the coating, a painter arrived to cover his work with a “faux paint job,” a technique that creates the appearance of wood.

The result?

“The effect is astounding, and when people walk in, they say, ‘I can’t believe it’s not real,’” VonFouts said. “It’s also amazing that Gary could finish it all in one day. This foam is such an amazing product, and when we were done, we said, ‘Oh man, we’re going to be using this for everything.’”


 

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