:: June 2007::A Playroom for Big KidsFor Bill and Gail Lockwood, an empty nest didn't mean playtime was over. With some help from Bridge Design Studio, the couple created the perfect game room for entertaining.text Teena Apeles photo C Michael Germana
The game room of a home is rarely a woman's domain, notes Diane Bedford of Bridge Design Studio in South Pasadena. “Most women don't want a billiard table in the main part of the house,” says the veteran designer of 30 years. “Most women would like all that ‘man stuff' somewhere else.” That's why it's no surprise that most game rooms are located in the basement or lower level of a family's home. The game room of retirees Bill and Gail Lockwood is no exception in terms of placement, but it's by no means a dark, seedy place that the woman of the house would want to keep at a distance. A sleek entertainment room was something the Lockwoods had wanted in their 1949 California ranch home in La Cañada Flintridge for some time. “We had envisioned it 15 years ago when we moved in, but it took that long for us to get around to doing it,” Bill says, laughing. Their sons were given free reign of the room initially. “One of our kids is a musician so he used it for band practice, then we later put a pool table in it,” says Bill. “When the children were here, the home was much more traditional,” adds Gail. “When we decided we were going to stay here and not move, then we said, ‘OK, we don't have little kids anymore, what would we like to do?' Then we just started [renovating], and Diane would direct us. It just came together.” Bedford worked closely with Gail on the entire redesign of the envy-worthy interiors, but took more of a director's role in the game room, which Gail refers to as “Bill's playroom” or “his cave.” “Bill was the main force behind this room,” says Bedford. The Lockwoods eliminated an adjoining storage area and converted it into a chic, L-shaped bar, complete with custom-made black-granite counters, wood cabinets and contemporary barstools. A number of well-planned and carefully researched additions complement the bar and the top-of-the-line Brunswick pool table: the unconventional use of Italian white pendant lights above the pool table, a dark wood card table and comfy rolling chairs in one corner, a flat-screen television on the adjacent wall, wheat-colored grass-cloth wallpaper and multitone slate flooring. That flooring is one of the most original facets of the room. Their landscape architect, Chris Cox, came up with the idea of continuing the uniquely laid slate flooring of their outside patio into the game room, bringing the exterior's Zen-like fusion of hardscape and softscape indoors. Artwork from friends and pieces collected on the Lockwoods' travels enlivens the space, including a painting from Cuzco, Peru, which is the main attraction in the bar area. Unwilling to take all the kudos for the stunning space, Bill says that the process was really a team effort: “It was a collaboration all the way.” Cox designed the bar and cabinets, Bedford determined the color palette and recommended furnishing choices, while the Lockwoods shouldered some of the toughest creative challenges. “Gail and I spent the longest time — on the whole house — researching the barstools and the pool table lights, [which] aren't really pool table lights,” he says. “After doing research on every pool table light in the world,” Gail says with a chuckle, “we decided they weren't good enough. But the barstools were also a real challenge.” Their solution for the latter problem: They had them custom-made. “Even the game room table and chairs aren't particularly, by design, contemporary, but we had them finished, and the dark stains make them work.” All the time the Lockwoods invested in this game room to create “something different” was worthwhile. It's the kind of space most would expect to see in a trendy boutique hotel. There's not one crowd-stopping piece in the room; rather, visitors enter and discover a world of entertainment possibilities. “You can play some pool, you can play cards, there's a plasma television — that always draws people in when there are sports games on — and the bar,” says Gail. “It's the whole sense of it: It's an adult playroom. When people come for the first time, they say, ‘Wow, we can play down here.'” © 2007 Southland Publishing |