The Best Little Basement in Denver

What holds the room together is the Victorian-style carpeting—a pattern of flowers in squares—that serves more than merely decorative purposes. “In a room with a media system like Rob has,” Dinner says, “we had to think of acoustics, too. A soft floor was the way to go, even though in Victorian times, people didn’t generally have wall-to-wall carpeting.”

Smith was also interested in installing a ceramic hexagonal tile floor at the entrance to his saloon. Dinner steered him toward a black floor with white centers (rather than the ubiquitous white with black), but finding this product wasn’t so easy. Finally Smith bought 12-inch squares of all-black hexagonal tiles and had the tile installers pop out center black tiles and replace them with white tiles. It was labor-intensive but definitely worth it.

Smith loves his room so much that he comes down every afternoon from 4 to 6 to relax by watching sports or old Westerns. Sometimes he moseys over to the bar (called the “Horseshoe Saloon”) and pours himself a drink. Sometimes he adjusts the lights so they are low and sexy as daylight turns dark. But all of the time, he thanks his lucky stars for having a wife who said, “Do whatever you want.” And he’s also grateful for a design team who came in on time and on budget. Forget Paladin. Rob Smith’s motto is much better: “Have room, will party!”