Transporting bits of the tropical paradise from her idyllic childhood home in Sumatra, Indonesia to the U.S. shores of the Pacific comprised a natural evolution for Island Life Founder, Lynette Wylie. As a child of missionaries growing up among Asian jungles and coconut groves where she derived her childhood center, she felt much like a modern day Mowgli of the jungle book. The villagers of Sumatra, Indonesia endowed Lynette with her first family, language, friends and native habitat.

Lynette's western ancestry furloughed her family to the U.S. in later years; but her heartstrings remained firmly affixed to the tropical beauty of the landscape and softspoken villagers of Indonesia. The link to that land of her childhood beckoned her back to the isles of Indonesia through her adult years. From her idyllic vacations, she returned with exotic art and furniture to begin her exquisite collection of Indonesian treasures. Over a decade ago, Lynette managed to gather sufficient seed money to satisfy her dream of working full time to bring her beautiful and exotic things she loved since a child to you to enjoy.

To accommodate her growing business, Island Life opened a warehouse located in Kent in 1996. Her business than moved to a full scale retail store in 1999 to Seattle, in the Soto District, where the now defunct Monorail Project moved the business to the Tacoma Tideflats in 2004. Lynette reopened a Sodo location in conjunction with a Mexican import store, Old World Market in January 2005. In September of 2006, Island Life moved next door to an independent location at 2909 1st. Avenue South, Seattle Washington.