Man Spaces

Game Rooms, Bars, and Saunas

Image Courtesy of Donald Lococo Architects

As our houses continue to evolve homeowners and architects are expanding the parameters of the masculine design box. Architect Donald Lococo of Donald Lococo Architects in Washington DC walked into a space destined for a whole house makeover in Chevy Chase and suggested that a requested billiards room should go in the attic.

“It had low ceilings it was very horizontal and cave-like,” says Lococo. The ceilings were framed and trimmed in faux walnut beams and a back staircase was used to move the pool table up in pieces. By running the table across the space, the design team discovered they had enough room for a sitting area.

The homeowner’s “lair” also holds a bathroom, storage and a heavy-duty exhaust fan for cigar smoke. Rich paneling in the same finish trims the handsome room but the favorite feature is an easy guess. “That leather chair, is my chair,” says the homeowner, “I’m up there all the time, it’s a good place to hide.”

Design By Landis Construction

After living in their Capitol Hill row house for twenty years Hugh Sloan and his Kathia, decided to remodel the kitchen which used to be the home’s back porch. “There was a four inch drop and the floor was sloped,” says Sloan.

To level the floor in the kitchen Armin Bondoc, Director of Design for Landis Construction in DC, suggested digging out the crawl space under the kitchen which would free up room in the inhospitable basement. “It was dark, and there was hardly any lighting,” says Bondoc, “we had to excavate, then move plumbing and the mechanicals.”

Opening up the space gave Sloan enough room for a bar area complete with a full size wine cooler, a work-out room and a permanent home for his sauna. “I ordered it six or seven months before the renovation started,” he says.

Images Courtesy of Yerko Pallimony

Bondoc worked around the sauna and had to finesses the spaces interior walls to make it fit. The end result is a totally pleasant basement and a slightly unforeseen result. “The work out area gets a lot of use,” says Sloan, “but my wife actually uses it more than me.”

Design By Wentworth Inc.

High ceilings and wide open spaces in the subterranean levels can be an unexpected challenge for designers. “We struggled with how to define the space,” says architect Bruce Wentworth of Bruce Wentworth Architects, Chevy Chase. Wentworth was called in to look at options for a basement in the same neighborhood.

Multi-purpose was the order of the day. “We told him we wanted an entertainment room, work-out area, and a pool table,” says the homeowner, “and we wanted minimum patricians between the space.”

Wentworth went to work carving up the 1500 square feet using what’s above to portion the rooms. “Coffered ceilings work well to define different functions,” he says. Support beams that couldn’t easily be moved were transformed into functional design elements. “We turned them into flared columns that help anchor the space,” says Wentworth.

Porcelain tile was used on the floor and cove lighting was installed in the ceiling. A card table floats next to an entire wall devoted to bookshelves. A bar was fitted into a wall near the pool table and a line of base cabinets provide separation from the media area.

The homeowner is a family man and children have been known to invade. But on those days when the kids are elsewhere, dad takes over. “That couch where the TV is a nice place to read – a nice quiet area,” says the homeowner ” Shhhhh.. dad’s taking a nap.

Design By EDG Architects

Don Tucker is the principal at EDG Architecture based in Bethesda, Maryland. He lives in a modern home in Cabin John built in the 1940’s and there’s always been a space problem. “These were built as starter homes so it has no basement and no attic,” he says, “plus I have a thirteen year old rock and roller and I needed a room where I could close the door.”

The good news is that the design of the homes in the neighborhood lend themselves to expansion. Tucker began scribbling a plan for an area off the dining room that would hold a seating area, space for guitars and a pool table.

Aesthetics also came into play as Tucker went to his modern history book for window inspiration and referenced Piet Mondrian. “It’s in keeping with the rest of the house,” says Tucker, “I wanted to add color to frame the views while continuing the vocabulary.”

The plan came together, changed the flow of the house in a positive way and also improved the connection between inside and outside. “It opens up the most interesting part of the yard,” says Tucker, “while also giving me some acoustical separation.”

Design By Ardo Contracting

Jim Molinelli, architect for Ardo Contracting in Columbia, Maryalnd was called in to a masculine basement-based project in Ellicott City that spanned two generations. “They had eighteen hundred square feet that they wanted to use for entertaining and his high school son could use as well,” he says. Ardo was also remodeling the home’s kitchen at the time and the old cabinets moved right downstairs.

The basement bar area was designed around the stuff from upstairs including the granite countertops. The bar is conveniently located next to a temperature controlled, walk-in, three hundred bottle wine room. “We made the room and put exterior grade doors on it with a refrigeration unit and a decanting station,” says Molinelli.

The space also includes a pool table, and seating areas kept toasty by a stone fireplace. Gym matting in the semi-pro work out room protects the hardwood floors downstairs and there’s a TV to keep your from getting bored while doing your road work.

As with all the manly spaces profiled, what you see is not always what you think you’re about to see – which is Molinelli’s favorite part. “When you get to top of the stairs and you look down you always get a ‘wow,’” he says, “I mean, you just don’t expect to see that.”

Text and images originally appeared in the October/November 2008 issue of Chesapeake Home Magazine.

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