I was working on a before and after submission for a publication when it occurred to me that I had never written about this project here. How did that happen?

Several years ago I was approached by the wing commander at Maxwell Air Force Base about handling the renovation of the Officers’ Club. It was a fabulous project because he, Colonel Pete Costello, was passionate about design and wanted to bring the badly run-down club back to its 1920’s glory days. It was the most challenging project of my entire career for many reasons, chief among them:

the time line. Maxwell had just learned that they would be hosting, for the first time, Corona , the most important strategy event of all in the military. Top brass from all branches  the world over would be attending. We had 6 weeks to completely renovated the club.

Say what!!!

Throw in the next wrinkle,

it was Christmas and all of the factories that I needed to use were about to close for 2 weeks for inventory.

Throw in the next wrinkle,

I could not bring any of my own sub-contractors in. We had to use the “talent” available through the federal penitentiary that is housed at Maxwell.

After hyperventilating Jeff and I attacked the project with gusto. This phase involved the upstairs bar and a multi-purpose room that was to  look like a gentleman’s cigar club. I am going to show a couple of pictures of those projects then concentrate on the real bugger boo that came as phase II, The Pit. It ain’t called the pit for nuthin! Phew. That placed smelled to high heaven. It is located  in the basement and is the hang-out for the younger crowd. Let’s just say it needed a lot of TLC.