“Tiger Lily” kitchen sinks, “Antique Red” bathtubs, “Fresh Green” toilets — and new for Kohler in 1972, “Black Black”, too. The late 1960s heading into the early 1970s were chock full of interesting colors for bathroom and kitchen plumbing fixtures. These are some of my favorite colors ever — “Tiger Lily” orange, yes! — and don’t forget: Harvest Gold and Avocado galore. Let’s take a look at 15 photos from a Kohler catalog I recently added to my collection.First off, let’s get the color names:
That said, Google can’t read words in photos, so here’s the list:
Available on all products:
- Kohler Mexican Sand
- Kohler Peachblow
- Kohler Harvest Gold
- Kohler Avocado
- Kohler Cerulean Blue
- Kohler Fresh Green, introduced in 1971
- Kohler New Orleans Blue
Available on selected products:
- Kohler Black Black, new for 1972
- Kohler Coppertone
- Kohler Antique Red
- Kohler Tiger Lily
- Kohler Expresso
- Kohler Blueberry
Now let’s look at some of the colors in action:
Kohler “Black Black”, new for 1972.
Above: My favorite, Tiger Lily, is shown in the “Trieste” kitchen sink. I also spy Coppertone on the “New Man’s Lav” and the “New Urbanite” sink is Harvest Gold.
I wonder how many kitchen sinks were sold in this color in America? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands?
Avocado Green must already have been a phenom, because there were three photos of products in the catalog. Including of: Urinals; no comment.
My catalog was mostly in black-and-white — it was a catalog for stores to order from, not a consumer-focused catalog. I’m featuring pretty much all the product photos in it.
Above: That the Kohler “Lady Vanity” in Mexican Sand, I’m pretty sure. Those Lady Vanities — and their countertpart, the Man’s Lav, were awesome.
Above: I think the three photos above are all Cerulean Blue. The color is not identified.
Above: New Orleans blue is a deeper blue tnan Cerulean blue. The scan did not pick up the richness I see in the actual catalog image.
Yikes, dig the poles — these were marketed as “stanchions” in sets of four. They included two stanchions with interior water tubing and shower arms.
I’ve seen this sanchioned bathtub in the wild [emphasis: wild!]:
I visited then wrote about this 1963 ‘Showgirl Chic” Palmer Krisel house when I spoke at Las Vegas Home & History Week. An incredible bathroom in an incredible house!
Back to the Kohler catalog: Peachblow shower insert… and a pair of bubblers. Yes, that’s what they call drinking fountains in Wisconsin, at least when I lived there many a moon ago.
Harvest Gold. And a Stangl wigstand in the photo shoot — I had one of those but I… dropped it.
Scrumptious, all of these colors.
If you had a time machine, which color would you choose for your new split level house?
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1973. A suburb of Buffalo, NY. 1930’s house with 1950’s bathrooms gets a 1970’s makeover.
My mother’s bathroom – Kohler Fresh Green – everywhere. Sink, Low Profile Commode, Tub, and a hair washing sink (kind of like the Man’s Lav described above, except the angle was on the left and there was a gold spray nozzle with a long hose to rinse your hair). All hardware in the flair gold with amber.
I was 10. All I knew was that NO-ONE I knew had bright green bathroom. NO-ONE!
The floor was white and two shades of green in some type of no-wax congoleum. It was bumpy and and patterned in a repeat paisley arabesque pattern.
This posting really time-warped me!
Sounds absolutely dreamy!
I search our local Craigslist everyday looking at the free things that people are removing to update their homes and wish I could save them all. I also save some of the pictures to look at over and over. Recently I saved a pic of the double faucet tub with the 4 poles in the Cerulean color that was being removed. Also drooled over a lavender toilet. We only have a Harvest gold tub and avocado shower stall in our 1978 home – the more common colors of that era.
Our 1969 house has a bar sink and a full kitchen sink in Blueberry! I never knew the color name until now. Sadly, had to remove our two Lady Lavs because they were in terrible shape, but we saved the 24k gold-plated faucets. They cleaned up nicely.
I love how the shag wall to wall carpet goes right up to the tubs and around the toilets! I remember it well! Also, remember how nasty it would get, ugh!
My parents’ carpeted bathroom has never gotten gross. It’s fine. Just clean once in a while.
I live just north of Kohler and work close by but have never been there. Guess I’ve been missing out and better get there soon! And yes Pam we still call them bubblers(that’s how you tell if someone is truly from Wisconsin:)
The carpet in the bathrooms always makes me cringe…
My mom and dad built a house in Florida in 1973 filled with Avecado sinks in the bathrooms along side the Avecado toilets and bathtub! Bedrooms were with green multi- colored green shag carpets! Even the kitchen was a dark green “brick” patterned linoleum! Wow, this really took me back-I can even see that bright lime green sofa she chose! Thanks!!
I think Mexican Sand is still made. I bought a toilet a couple of years ago. Cerulean Blue is back in style today, especially for cars.
In 1976 I replaced a white kitchen sink with a Kohler Coppertone one in our 1960 house. It went perfectly with the original brown speckled counter tile and brown cabinets and brown appliances. For good measure, we installed a red brick patterned floor tile. Even the dining table and chairs were brown. Now it would seem so dark and BROWN.
It’s so fun to see these gorgeous rooms & fixtures. A couple of years ago I bought a close-out (NOS) bathroom sink in Blueberry for our eventual bathroom retro-remodel. I would love to see some sample bathrooms with that color of sink! I want to have a walk-in shower, to replace the tub, in case that helps!
My mother’s kitchen sink: Fresh Green, same sink as the square orange one with the disposal in the upper right corner in the ad. She probably remodeled that kitchen in 1975.
On backing out my driveway about 6 years ago I saw my neighbor had put their pink and blue American Standard sinks and commodes at the street for trash pick up that morning.
I jumped out of car and saw that the commodes were PRISTINE and the matching sink wear almost like new!
The water tanks still had the paper labels on the side in perfect shape!
I love mid century modern and hope to live in a MCM home here in Gainesville, FL someday.
My dear husband said no to installing the vintage in our mid 80’s split level but my other neighbor helped me drag them across the street before I went on to work and then my nephew took pics of them and put them on Craigslist.
A sweet woman from 3+ hours away purchased both sets and was as excited about them as I was when I spotted them at the street!
Incidentally when the home went on the market I was able to check out the “new” bathrooms and they were poorly executed and bland 🙁
Hooray for you!
I toured the Kohler factory in KohlerWI a few years ago. Interesting 2 hour tour where you get to see all aspects of production up close. They have ‘bathrooms of the future’ on display too but no pictures allowed!
We have the tub (the one shown in black with the posts) only ours is the bright red in our home in Maine. We used just the tub and never used the posts for some reason. Later when we remodeled we built a wooden canopy around it. The original posts/canopy that was with it was for the shower heads. At the time they called it the KEY LARGO. We also had the red kitchen sink, the bathroom had the black sinks and black toilets with fire pewter counter tops. Our place in Florida has the red Kohler birthday bath. I have a weakness for Kohler and for all retro! Love your site. Thank you for all the wonderful pics and stories.
Oh Pam, I just gained 10 pounds from looking at all this eye candy! I love colored bathroom and kitchen fixtures. I always thought they looked glamorous and fun. please Kohler, bring them back.
We had relatives that built a gem of a house in 1975. It had two bathrooms, one on each floor. Both had the lady vanity sink. One bath was Mexican sand, the other was copper tone. One thing the woman hated was cleaning floors around toilets. The solution was that Koehler made toilets that hung from the wall, rather than sit in the floor. This made it really easy to just swipe underneath. Sadly, the bathrooms were remodeled in the late 90’s by new owners and all that great stuff was thrown away.