Excitement is growing at Peddler’s Village as we get ready to open the Buttonwood Grill, our new restaurant honoring our history and celebrating our 50th anniversary. As opening day draws closer, we’ll be sharing a behind the scenes look at everything from the redesign and reconstruction to the new food and drink menus from the people who are directly involved with the transformation of this restaurant.
TAG Galyean
We recently caught up with TAG Galyean, AIA, who is designing the new interiors. Galyean is an award-winning architect and designer with more than 30 years of architectural, landscape and interior design expertise in the hotel, restaurant and luxury resorts industry. The West Virginia native’s work was most recently honored in the 2012 Forbes Travel Guide selection of Five Star hotels, restaurants and spas. Galyean designed four of those chosen to win the coveted Five Star designation. He is responsible for the planning and architecture at The Greenbrier Spa (West Virginia) and is the master designer at The Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which is home to three of the Five Star winners — The Broadmoor Hotel, The Penrose Dining Room and The Broadmoor Spa. Galyean is the founder and master design conceptualist of The TAG Studio, a group of resort design specialists nationwide. www.tagstudio.com
Q: How would you describe the design concept for the Buttonwood Grill?
A: The Buttonwood Grill is not a theme restaurant. The restaurant design is simply warm and welcoming, friendly and calming; just a comfortable place to be at ease with family and friends. The bar will be more traditional and more present, a kind of place where people will want to be.
Q: What design elements are you using to convey this?
A: We’re aiming for authentic Bucks County with some energy. We’re using barn siding in the entrance way and on the exposed bar, also the reception area is tiled with a natural tumbled slate. The carpeting will look and feel like an old nubby sweater. The color palette comes from the stone walls that you see in the Bucks County countryside with earthy tones of tans, muted reds, browns. And, the Buttonwood tree at the front entrance is a color inspiration for the grays and silvers of its trunk–it’s the link into the natural environment as soon as you walk in.
Q: What would you like guests to experience or how would you like them to feel when they are dining at the Buttonwood?
A: We would like people to feel like they belong here and that they want to linger and enjoy themselves. We are using design elements that won’t be chaotic or compete with your companions for your attention. We are mining a number of elements that Earl Jamison already had here in the Village, for instance, we are using the walnut bar from the Spotted Hog on the Buttonwood’s back bar. And we’re recycling items that were already on property such as slate for the reception desk and a bench that will be in the reception area. We have selected some old black and white photos of the local area from the archives of the New Hope Historical Society for the walls throughout the restaurant.
Q: What are some of the unique challenges of this space for you as a designer?
A: In designing anything, what you don’t do is just as important as what you do. As in music, it’s the spaces between the notes that are also an important part of the composition. Over my 40-year career, I learned where to make the effort and where not to, which is important as we transform this space from the former restaurant concept. For example, in the tavern room, the consensus was that the stone was too contemporary but we did not want to remove it so we just did something very simple–added some crown molding which changed the feel of the stone.
Thanks, TAG, see you on opening day! Next week, we’ll talk with Director of Restaurants Jim Perillo, who is leading the culinary team creating the new food and beverage offerings.
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