I Used This Design Trick to Re-create the Coziness of My Favorite Bar (It Was So Easy!)

When Susan Harrigan called Knoxville, Tennessee, “a scruffy little city” ahead of the 1982 World’s Fair, it was not a compliment. I don’t know if Knoxville set out to prove her wrong or if she just got it wrong, but the city has donned the insult as a badge of honor. And when my family moved to Knoxville two years ago with tender feet and raw hearts, we discovered that “scruffy” is an absolute vibe.

Eager to explore after a tumultuous and unexpected journey that ended in a fresh start in a new place, my husband and I made it a point to spend the first few months checking out the city. We especially loved going downtown, where so many streets and restaurants ooze the kind of old-world charm that wraps you in its arms and sweeps you into another place and time. Knoxville’s downtown is small but chock-full of architectural gems: Within less than a quarter square mile, you can see over two-dozen buildings listed in the National Register of Historic Places. 

One of our very favorite spots is tucked into the historic Oliver Hotel. Peter Kern Library is a speakeasy-style bar, complete with a hidden door tucked into an alleyway marked by a hazy red light. When you knock, an even smaller door opens, and you’re asked for the password (which you can find on Instagram). Inside, you wait in a dark hallway for admittance to the coziest bar that has not only been the setting for some of our best late-night, post-theater dates, but has also heavily influenced design decisions in our own home. 

What’s fascinating is that I didn’t set out to be inspired when we first visited Peter Kern Library — being there planted some creative seeds that grew into aesthetic choices. It hit me when I was sitting in our kitchen nook after my sister helped me hang the gallery wall. The nook reminded me of the coziness I’d experienced at Peter Kern Library, and it dawned on me that I could trace quite a few of my kitchen and dining room design decisions back to the speakeasy-style bar. 

Seating at Peter Kern Library consists of a series of camel-colored channel-back booths. They’re beautiful and comfortable and instantly create a snug atmosphere of familiarity. They practically beckon to you, “Come here, sit; sip your craft cocktail, and tell me things you’ve never shared.” 

I want this same kind of intimacy in our own eat-in kitchen, minus the craft cocktails (most of the time, ha!), and although we haven’t done it yet, putting a booth in our nook is high on our wish list. In the meantime, I’ve attempted to recreate the feeling of a hug with a gallery wall of art that wraps around our corner kitchen table. When I look at how the art pattern curves similar to the booth, I know this was definitely something I picked up on a visit to Peter Kern Library.

While I don’t have the bar’s dark wood walls in my kitchen or dining room, the wood, black, and gold frames evoke that same faintly glamorous, slightly enigmatic tone, splashed with just enough whimsy. I wanted the wall to feel atmospheric as a whole, but intensely interesting when studied more closely. This is how I feel in Peter Kern Library, with its portraits that bookend the room, one of Peter Kern himself looking sternly out across the bar through time, and another a painting of a child in a mirror who simultaneously has his back to the viewer and looks directly into the viewer’s eyes. 

We also color-drenched our dining room in a moody teal (Sherwin-Williams’s Quietude) that’s not as dramatic as the speakeasy, but still gives it some character. My grandparents’ dark wood and gilded dining room set evokes an old-world sensibility that I’ve tempered with a modern-leaning minimalist round mirror to anchor a design from the past in the here and now.

Light glinting off the glass and gilded objects in Peter Kern Library suffuses the space with a sparkle that’s only accentuated by the bar’s black ceilings and wood walls. From the glass bottles of liquor that crowd the bar shelves to the glass decor tucked into bookshelves, the room gleams with reflections of warm light. Candles set on stacks of books flicker, vignettes in keeping with the feel of libraries and whispers uttered in the secret spaces of bygone times. Even the tables boast tiny cordless lamps that drip with a coziness that’s tempered by a modern flair. 

We opted for a glass globe light fixture over our kitchen table. I love how the glass sparkles and the way the visible bulbs emulate a pinpoint of warmth, like fire. The fixture is echoed in the one set over our adjacent dining room’s table, but these glass globes are textured and sparkle even more. Dimmer switches on both fixtures allow us to turn the lights low when the mood calls for it (or when we want to turn the mood down a bit).

A friend who hadn’t seen my kitchen and dining room before recently commented that it felt like a scene from The Great Gatsby. I swooned at the compliment because that’s how I feel whenever I walk into the Peter Kern Library. I’ve always been drawn to spaces steeped in the styles of the 1920s: Give me all the speakeasy and Art Deco vibes — and I’ll give them to you when you come to my house.

Our home’s design mirroring that of our favorite bar is emblematic of more than liking this speakeasy style. It’s a testament to how inspiration can be born from unknowingly internalizing your surroundings. When we moved to Knoxville, I was different. In this new city, I was open, and my heart was impressionable. 

Everything I saw with these new eyes got into me, and eventually it came out in my style choices. But isn’t this how we make a home? What’s inside of us comes out, one way or another, in what we choose to surround ourselves with. 

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