By Charles Curkin

"I'm sure I was baptized in pilsner." So explains Patrick Cool of his thirst to recreate an English pub beside the pool his family was adding to their Montreal yard.

The veteran of the Canadian beverage industry is married, however, to Mélanie Cherrier, founder of Blanc Marine Intérieurs, a Montreal firm known for classic and tastefully contemporary design. And when Cool showed Cherrier a Pinterest photo in which someone had turned a work shed into a pub, she balked. "It was tacky," she recalls. Dart boards, neon signs and plastic lobsters overloaded the shack. "It was chaotic and kitschy, with no architectural grounding or story," said Cherrier, who added, "I have my standards."

The couple argued. "He's the hardest client I ever had," said Cherrier. "He wanted everything to be black. I didn't want Dracula's lair at my house." At one point she told Cool, "I'm not going to design it." But when it became clear that he would need her organizational skills and design expertise to bring the vision to life, she eventually agreed to take it on.

Cherrier, who has never set foot in a London saloon, spent hours researching legendary English pubs and worked to capture "one of those that's been standing for over a hundred years without ever being gutted, where the interiors have soaked up decades of laughter, smoke and stories."

The designer, whose professional work does frequently include a dose of black, finished the tongue-and-groove wainscoting in the little building with an opaque, inky stain. The treatment gave the wood a rich, uniform look but allowed the texture to show through. For a subtle contrast, Cherrier coated walls and ceiling with a creamy Venetian plaster to mimic the patina of old nicotine-tinged surfaces. "Darkness is fine, but you need contrast with something light," she said.

Cherrier designed the inset-panel bar herself and had a local woodworker build it out of red oak. The acanthus-leaf brackets, or corbels, nail the neoclassical style and lend a historic note. Cool sourced the bentwood stools on Facebook Marketplace. They came from another pub that was closing. "It was nice to give the bar stools a second life," he said. Today two draft lines and taps from a defunct Vancouver bar serve up Cool's favorite local ale and a rotation of artisanal brews. An undercounter fridge chills Cherrier's white wine.

Also salvaged and adding to the room's ambience: a pedestal table, also from Facebook Marketplace, and the benches that form its surrounding banquette. The seats are repurposed pews from the now-defunct church that Cool's father attended. It's a fitting choice, according to Cool, whose attachment to beer is borderline spiritual.

Aged brass and ribbed-glass light fixtures contribute to the "warm, hazy feel" that Cherrier was going for, and the checkerboard tile floor adds a classic touch "without feeling too fancy," she said. That said, the floor is, in fact, rather sophisticated, even beyond its integrated heating. An installer cut standard 12-inch-squared pieces of tile into the custom pattern Cherrier designed. "It was a labor of love, but so worth it," she said.

Mementos, photos and brewery signs hew mostly to a palette of brown, white and black. (See the collection built around the Gordon's London Dry Gin ad, at top). Cherrier further linked prints and photos with vintage-style frames. "I made sure everything felt cohesive in terms of texture and color," she said.

The real coup of the gallery wall: the television hidden in plain sight. "She didn't want to have a giant TV that would destroy the atmosphere," Cool said. Cherrier tucked the black rectangle among the ballplayers and liquor ads, where it disappears against the ebony wainscoting (shown above).

The building, too, is camouflaged, its board-and-batten siding blending with the matte-black fence behind it, except for the vintage french doors that were treated in a natural finish.

Herringbone concrete pavers surround the 12-feet-by-26-feet pool. "We chose a medium gray that reminds me of old European street-paving stones, " said Cherrier.

With the patio, pool and landscaping costing about 125,000 Canadian dollars, or about $91,000, the pub was immediately open for business in 2022. The couple's three children, aged 14, 19 and 23, use it constantly, especially their middle son, who likes to host friends there. "It's become the hangout spot," said Cherrier.

Indeed. "People think I have an alcohol problem because I'm always in my pub," Cool said. "In the morning, when people are still sleeping, I go to my pub and start my workday from there."

With the warm weather, he adds, he leaves the doors open to hear the birds.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 12, 2025 12:30 ET (16:30 GMT)

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