What was once an unused, forgotten basement is now a masterclass in character-driven design. Reclaimed barnwood, antique industrial relics, and custom metalwork blend heritage, artistry, and function into an underground escape unlike anything else we’ve built.
A ceiling of character
The story begins overhead. Hand-selected barnwood beams — salvaged from midwestern farms over a century old — now span the ceiling with purpose and presence. The timbers carry decades of weathering, hand-forged nail holes, and saw marks. We refinished and sealed them for longevity, then lit them with concealed LED accents that play with the natural variation in tone and texture.
The bar — industrial elegance
Anchoring the entertainment space is a custom bar crafted from an antique cotton-processing machine — an extraordinary piece of American industrial history reimagined into a show-stopping surface. A live-edge wood top sits inside the original steel frame, backlit shelving runs behind the bottles, and the subtle industrial hardware is preserved and restored throughout.
The cotton-gin, before
This is what we started with — the cotton-gin frame, raw and waiting, before the wood top went on and the lighting was tuned. Half the design work was simply listening to what the piece was already telling us.
A copper cascade
Inside the wine cellar, water meets metal. A custom copper waterfall flows across a hand-fitted patinaed copper panel, catching the light and adding ambiance through movement and sound. Oxidized, burnished, lit from within — it’s the room’s quietest, most arresting feature.
Built to last
Every surface is built to age well. The beams, the bar, the copper — they’ll all be more beautiful in twenty years than they are today. That’s the kind of work we love most.
