Welcome to White's Gentlemen's Club (Pt.1)
White's Gentlemen's Club was founded in 1693 and is one of the oldest gentlemen's clubs in London. It has existed in its present location since the late 1700s. When men in Regency and Victorian novels speak about going to their clubs, this is one of them. Even today it remains a private, men's only club boasting King Charles III as a member (his bachelor party for his marriage to Diana was held there).
Because it's such a private space it was a nightmare to try to recreate as the information available was extremely limited. Pictures of the interior were rare and one of the main books I was able to find on the subject is rare and I couldn't get my hands on it. So while I made it as accurate as I could, within sims-constraints, there was also a lot of imagination poured into it. Because the save I was designing it for is modern, I didn't limit myself to only historical or off-the-grid pieces. That particular challenge can wait for the next time I try a Regency save.
The result is a Bar Lot, with plenty of space for games, parties, and socializing, as well as quiet corners to sit with a good book. And thankfully with LittleMsSam's Gender & More Lot Traits, I was able to make it accessible to only men, preserving that bit of accuracy.
The Facade and Layout
As seen at the top of the post, I did what I could to replicate the modern facade. Parts of this were easier than others. Although I had many of the needed objects from when I made the Hotel de Charost, the medallions on the front were difficult to find (in part because I didn't know any of the words to search them by). I couldn't find extant ones, so I made my own based on images I found online. Thank god for normal maps as they do a lot of the heavy lifting here.
The first sims-driven inaccuracy is the necessity to have floors of equal heights. As you can see from this cross section, that's not in fact the case. My build sacrifices the vaulted ceiling of the Coffee Room to allow the second floor to be of uniform height.
I was lucky to find this 1800s plan of the layout of the first two floors. I relied heavily on this for placing interior walls. My layout is seen below.
The Hall
I had nothing to rely on for this room. At all. As the entry hall I decided a closet was in order, if unlikely in reality (I really should have found better doors for it). I also found a reception desk that, when recolored and paired with a counter, provided a little administrative hub. I finally got around to tracking a filing cabinet down, which I ended up retexturing to maxis match.
The Morning Room
This was one of the few rooms I had a photo to work from, even if it was from a single angle, in black and white, and rather out of date. As such, I did my best to match it as well as possible. I tracked down magazines and newspapers and made a new spandrel to cleanly mimic the ones shown. I made new lamps and ceiling lights as well as new curtains, including extremely large ones to fit across the bow window. The bow window at White's is quite famous-- Beau Brummell used to sit there, critiquing the passersby, and the seat was also that of the Duke of Wellington for many years. I have a medallion over one fireplace here of him, which stands in for a bas relief of one of the deceased Kings'. The award below it stands for the silver belt won by Heenan after his fight with Sayers-- a "unsophisticated" visitor once asked "did the King win it," causing quite a bit of amusement. I also made a ceiling clock-- then, with the spandrels, had to lower it to fit below them.
The Foyer and Main Staircase
Staircases are always tricky. There was never any chance of achieving the elegant sweep of the real staircase, or the elegant little niches. there's an odd little window in the wall in the photo-- I suspect there was once a fireplace there. I did manage to replicate the numerous photos (even if some are there more for shape than content).
The Billiard Room
Why oh why are there not billiard tables in the Sims 4? These cc ones do work, and I'm grateful people have put in the time to make accoutrements for snooker, but it would be nice to have official ones. I have so many builds that would use them. This is another space that I had to make out of whole cloth, as I had only a few sparce bits of information. I put the main bar here, along with a small stage. The TV that the bar lot requires is hidden here.
Miscellaneous Ground Floor Spaces
There are some odd spaces which don't have labels. I turned one into a bathroom, as the drawings seemed to imply as much. Another became an old-fashioned place to make a phone call. One is, I believe, the old back entrance before it was enclosed to form the billiard room, hence the odd shape. I added a mirror to make it look bigger and these paintings (the left is the Duke of Wellington as the High Constable of England, a Tudor-style get up he had to wear for George IV's coronation, the right is a late 19th century imagining of Wellington's lone meeting with Nelson).
Tumblr's image limit constrains me from posting everything here all at once, so go here for Part 2 and the First Floor!
