Prohibition Wine Cellar Revival
Photography by Trevon Baker
The executives, Orvis Evans and Cornelius "Con" Kelly, found their ideal hideaway in Northwest Montana along the peaceful shores of the Swan Lake and River in the early 1900’s. They called it The Kootenai Camp. With Prohibition on the horizon, Kelley and Evans stockpiled a large supply of liquor. When that ran out, they hired a bootlegger to keep the cellar supplied.
Todays owners, Scott & Pip Goninan, hired Jennifer to restore the Prohibition Wine Cellar in 2020 who is passionate about working with history. What a better place than Kootenai Lodge Estates, nestled in the valley of the Swan River Mountain range on the banks of the majestic Swan River, just outside of Bigfork, Montana. Jennifer’s first call was to a dear friend, master stone mason and Montana historian, Denny Kellog to help breathe new life into this historic space.
Cellar lies under the covered structure on the far right, a staircase leads to this underground wine cellar.
Stairs leading to the Cellar door.
The remarkable story of Kootenai began in 1906 when two executives of Montana's Anaconda Copper Company envisioned a place to spend carefree summers fishing, hunting and relaxing with their families in the pristine wilderness. Built in the early 1900s, The Kootenai Lodge was designed by Kirtland Cutter — he is most well-known for his work on the Lake McDonald Lodge at Glacier National Park. The Lodge is also listed on the Nation Register of Historic Places. Jennifer’s goal was to tip her hat to his remarkable craftsmanship; preserve history while carefuly modernizing the cellar and surrounding lodges with modern day ammenities. Stay tuned for future stories on how she is working with an amazing team to rejuvinate the cabins at this lodge.
Exhibit A:
Let the design process begin!
Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933. Therefore this project commenced as a hole under ground.
As designers, we can’t do
what
we do
without a
collaboration of
amazing
creatives
and craftspeople.
Laurel Peterson added her knowledge with aging the table, outlets, switches and light trims so nothing looked new. This deserves a before and after of its own. She can take a white boring light switch and faux paint it to seemlessly blend in with tile, wood or any surface. She is a magician!
Denny drilling into the ceiling to secure one of the beams. He did all the brick and stone work and supplied the old reclaimed beams and added great ideas & his expertise to the overall design.
“We found antique glasses and accessories to complete the project. I had found the arched mirror with candleholders and drawer on one of our many antique buying trips and this was the perfect home for it.”
-Jennifer
Wine cellar storage and antique glassware. John Eisenlohr, Lakeside Cabinetry, built the wine cabinets, bench and new door for the cellar giving it all a greyed worn rustic patina. He even aged the mirrors behind the wine bottles to give them an antique look.
Rich Gustafson did the electrical, adding a light strip to accent the arched brick ceiling and installing our Ralph Lauren Branson 8 light wagon wheel chandelier is avaliable on our website.
Cheers!
