RESTAURANTS + BARS
Village Supper Club
Delavan, WI
The Village Supper Club is a rare project that united all participants in a shared purpose and commitment, inspired by the vision of its new owners who are also long-time Delavan, Wisconsin residents. Reimagining the 55-year-old restaurant was born out of their love of the community and the desire to save from demolition, a gathering place for future generations to enjoy. Located on the shores of Delavan Lake, the 8,400 square-foot transformation of the restaurant embodies authentic, understated elegance as a homage to the supper club tradition of dining, cocktails, and entertainment.
The architecture embraces the local residential scale, vernacular materials, and construction typical of Wisconsin’s landscape. The exterior is a striking, minimalist vignette of field stone and cedar wood centered around a stone hearth inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin home on the Wisconsin prairie. The interior blends modernity with evocative textures, patterns, and colors as characters in the restaurant’s story.
With the lake being the star of the show, the goal was to make every guest feel like they had the best seat in the house. In an unconventional move, we designed an amphitheater-like section through the dining room so there would be no obstructed views. From the low-slung entry, guests arrive into an expansive space where the ground plane drops from view and vanishes through a 26-foot-tall wall of glass, leaving an impressive vista of the lake. To complement the guest experience, we created a second focal point over the bar. A custom oil-rubbed bronze mesh case hovers above the bar and shimmers from light reflecting off the glass bottles behind the mesh screen.
