Aside from its modern design features, beachy blues, and sunny, open floor plan, Evergreen Hill, a custom home on Minnesota’s Lake Minnetonka, could be mistaken for one of the area’s historic estates—which, according to builder J. Sven Gustafson, was precisely the goal.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the home’s moody basement bar and wine room, which take their inspiration from early 20th-century London.
“It was the homeowners’ desire to have a traditional English-looking in-home pub inspired by those they had seen on their trips to London over the years,” says Gustafson, who owns Stonewood, a Minnesota custom building firm.
To create that look, Gustafson used oil-rubbed brass and bronze hardware, geometric white and black floor tile behind the bar (reminiscent of old Victorian tile), and rich, dark walnut millwork for the bar and the circular wine room that houses the homeowners’ extensive wine collection.
The in-home pub not only stores antique bottles of Scotch whiskey, wine, and spirits collected from around the globe, but also features handcrafted beer on tap from the adjacent home brewery and walk-in commercial cooler. To create a truly authentic taproom bar experience, Gustafson added a cozy seating area by a wood-burning fireplace adjacent to the bar.
“Eight sets of lines run from the walk-in cooler to different taps in the bar,” Gustafson says. “And big glass bypass doors separate the pub area from the brewery, allowing the homeowners and their guests to see all of the kegs and equipment behind the scenes.”
