Tiki Island

HOW TIKI ISLAND CAME TO BE, AND TO BE CALLED TIKI ISLAND “I wanted to call it” — wait for it — “Buccaneer Bay,” says the peninsula’s developer Welcome Wilson Sr. in a recent interview with the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff. For all its alliterative charm, however, Wilson’s business partner Bill Sherrill vetoed the suggestion, and Wilson dropped it because he owed Sherrill one. Indeed, it was Sherrill, Wilson tells Sarnoff, who “noticed that when we drove to Jamaica Beach” — the duo’s first project together — “he would see this land over on the right that was about 6 in. above sea level, at the causeway. So he began to wonder: Is that privately owned?” It was, by about 5 different entities, says Wilson. “So he came to me and said, ‘You know, this is 25 minutes closer to Houston than Jamaica Beach,'” adding that if they dug canals as part of the development, the resultant dirt would be enough to elevate the surrounding land. Wilson gave his sign-off and Sherrill bought the land. “Then, just as we got going,” in the late ’60s, says Wilson, “the President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson, appointed [Sherrill] to the Federal Reserve Board in Washington and he left town, sold it out to me.” But the name stuck — and was formalized when the area incorporated as The Village of Tiki Island in 1982. “It was all Bill’s idea,” says Wilson. “No question about it.” [Houston Chronicle] Photo of Tiki Island: HAR