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The Monkey King: West Palm man just goes bananas at Christmas

By Charlyne Varkonyi Schaub

December 20, 2002

Michael Escamilla's monkey obsession began long ago in another place, way before today's tropical trend put the popular primates on everything from dishes to area rugs.

It started with a nickname that his older sister, Tessa, gave him when they were growing up in San Antonio. She lovingly called him Chango, a Spanish word for monkey.

Five-year-old Chango started playing with stuffed monkeys. Then he went through a period from childhood to adolescence when his life was monkey-free. The turning point came during college in the early 1970s, when Tessa gave him a monkey ornament wearing a red Santa hat to top his Christmas tree.

From that point on, there was no return.

This holiday season, Escamilla, a vice president of operations for a company that sells software for assisted living facilities, decorated his Christmas tree with about 150 ornaments. His sister, who still calls her 50-year-old brother Chango, has continued buying him an ornament each year. Friends have joined the tradition. And each year, he adds several to his collection.

The observant visitor can tell that monkeys hold a special place in his heart by standing on the porch of his vintage 1930s home in the historic Old Northwood section of West Palm Beach. On each side of the front-door frame are his guardians -- small, green, metal monkeys. (His home, which has been named Old Northwood's home of the month for its exterior renovation, will be one of 16 on the neighborhood's Annual Candlelight Home Tour on Dec. 28. See accompanying box.)

Escamilla's artificial Christmas tree almost grazes the ceiling of his small dining room and is tucked into a corner near a mirrored wall. The monkey ornaments range from 1 inch to several inches tall. They're as inexpensive as the egg with pipe-cleaner arms and legs that his sister found at a craft show or as costly as $50 to $60 elegant hand-blown glass ornaments. The monkeys are riding magic carpets, twirling in circles, perching on packages and hanging from puppet strings. They cover the species from chimpanzees to gibbons.

Some of them also come with memories, such as the two monkey heads from Slavic Treasures that he found at Jacobson's when it was located in Mizner Park.

"In fact, I found them while I was looking at a job offer," Escamilla says. "They have beautiful smiling faces. When I found these ornaments, I knew it was the job for me. Each one is hand-painted and looks different."

An elegant monkey, wearing a turban with a gold body and a bisque face, also has special meaning. Five years ago, a friend who was diagnosed with breast cancer the same year gave it to him. She is currently in remission.

A self-confessed "shopper," he bought many of his monkey ornaments at Neiman-Marcus and at Johnnie Brown's on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach. He's also found them on business trips in places like Santa Fe and Hawaii. But shopping on eBay or in mail-order catalogs is not his thing.

"I like to see and feel something before I buy it," he says.

His monkey mania isn't limited to the holiday season. Monkeys of all types decorate all aspects of his 1,500-square-foot home -- from tops of Asian chests to bookshelves and inside curios. He has French porcelain guards that he found in an antique shop in New York, a Victorian bronze toothpick holder that he picked up on Worth Avenue and monkey boxes with removable heads he discovered at a flea market. There are monkey teapots, monkey posters and an expensive St. Louis crystal piece.

One of his favorites was purchased when he and Tessa were traveling in China. A shopkeeper talked him into buying a jade amulet that is half man and half monkey.

The monkey mania doesn't end at the main house. A detached garage, which he is converting into a guest room/office, has a colorful painting of a monkey on the door. Escamilla hired West Palm Beach artist Diane Bates to paint a simple monkey eating either a banana or an orange under a palm tree, but Bates talked him into a more elaborate scene that she said reflected his personality. The monkey, wearing a jacket and hat, is sitting in a colorful tent under a palm tree. A swan, taken from the Escamilla family coat of arms, is in the water in front of the tent.

"She suggested putting my initials on his jacket," he said. "The door became much more than I ever anticipated."

Monkeys have always been popular with the Palm Beach crowd because of legendary architect Addison Mizner and his pet monkey, Johnnie Brown. But it hasn't been until the recent few years that monkeys have become ubiquitous with the national popularity of the tropical home furnishings trend.

If The New York Times' House & Home section is to be believed, America's monkey obsession is about to end.

"They're cute, but we're tired of them," Stacy Senior Allan, marketing manager of Thibaut wallcoverings, recently told the newspaper. "It was part of the British colonial thing. It's hanging on in parts of the South."

Escamilla says he will never tire of his monkeys. He continues to be fascinated with what he describes as clever animals with expressive faces that are able to get what they want.

"Monkeys have been around for centuries and people have enjoyed them for centuries as ornamentation," he says. "Any good monkey will find his way back into style."

Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel