Capital Hill's soon-to-open cocktail bar Stanton & Greene is designed to evoke the 1930s and 1940s, with thoughtful design details like patinaed restored tiles, a tin ceiling, and glowing liquor lockers overhead. But the biggest design goal of all might just be to bring natural light into a space that hadn't seen the light of day in awhile.
Stanton & Greene will open in the circa 1850-era building formerly occupied by the Pour House on Pennsylvania Avenue, where rooms were deliberately dark in order to showcase the sports bars' televisions. And in the renovation of the building for Stanton & Greene, the team behind the new cocktail bar —Sonoma Restaurant & Wine Bar's Eli Hengst and Jared Rager and Beuchert's Saloon's August Paro — revealed enormous, nine-foot tall windows that had been covered up, as well as a blacked-out skylight upstairs. "They had done everything they could to make everything in here dark," Paro said. "We wanted to bring in as much natural light as possible."
The team is restoring the details they could restore, like the window frames, and bringing in touches like chicken-wire lined sconces and impressive custom bars. "We want to maintain the details that were here," Paro said.
Downstairs will be a laid-back bar serving classic cocktails and reimagined classic cocktails, where drinkers can also get a bite to eat. "We want everyone from staffers to senators to rub elbows here," Paro said. Upstairs will be a private event space that may open up for diners and drinkers on Friday and Saturday nights or Sunday brunch. The goal is to open up in mid-February.
