Instead of the typical adaptive reuse scenario where a strip mall, event hall, or grocery store becomes a church, an entertainment venue in the Sylvan-Charlotte district of West Nashville, Tenn., has sprung from a church. As a result, the former West Nashville United Methodist Church, built in 1889 and expanded throughout the years, is now called Clementine.
The backstory
Owners Dan and Brenda Cook are experienced with projects that breathe new life into previously closed historic buildings. In 2011 they bought a shuttered church in the Hillsboro Village area of Nashville and restored it, creating a boutique event venue they named Ruby. Since then the location has become a popular hub for private functions. In the meantime, the Cooks scouted out another suitable building to transform into a similar, larger venue.
Last year they acquired West Nashville United Methodist Church and spent a year renovating the building, including removal of internal walls and false ceilings and stripping the plaster from the walls to reveal the original bare brick beneath. Their goal -- to create a beautiful facility that blends the history of the space with a contemporary industrial design -- and to provide the community with a large, flexible space that could be easily adapted to events of all kinds.
The venue is now comprised of two main areas. The former sanctuary has been named Adelaide Hall and features a large vaulted ceiling and two separate stage areas. Then behind it is a separate room, called Little Bird Lounge in honor of Cook’s daughter. The lounge has a distinct feel and boasts a 20-foot, built-in black marble bar. In addition, there are three dressing rooms available for performing artists as well as an intimate outdoor courtyard.
AVL forethought
The couple's innovative and adaptable approach extends to the technical aspects of the venue, which have also been designed to offer flexibility to the event organizers who will use the space. As Dan Cook explains, “We take a distinct approach from every other venue in town, which require lighting to be brought in. We believe that hired-in lighting is never as good as thoughtful lighting that is permanently installed and configurable. So, taking that idea to the extreme, for Clementine we wanted maximum flexibility for the client, so we added wall washing lights, stage washing lights, house lights and illuminated window arches. Every light in the building is LED and everything is dimmable and color changeable."
He adds, "Our goal is for no client to ever feel compelled to bring in supplemental lighting. This not only saves our clients money, but it makes our day shorter, reducing setup and strike down time for each event.”
To achieve their goal, the Cooks brought in Corner Audio and Video, the same company they relied on to outfit Ruby. Headed up by Chief Systems Designer David Goon, it is the installation division of Corner Music, the retail company owned and founded by Larry Garris, which has supplied the musicians of music city since 1976.
“I’m not an audio or lighting expert, so over the years I’ve come to rely on Corner Music to strike the right balance between cost and offerings,” says Dan Cook. “David Goon has really steered me in a great direction with [lighting manufacturer] ADJ, we’ve been using their lighting at our original venue for around five years and I’ve always been very pleased with it. So when it came to setting up Clementine, we were happy to follow David’s recommendation.”
Design players and moves
A native of Ohio and Nashvillian since 1978, Goon operated his own electronics repair business, which led him into media system installations. He has been a part of Corner’s design and installation team since 1998, and an exponent of ADJ products for more than 10 years, he reports. His ethos is one of building on-going relationships rather than simply selling products or carrying out one-off projects.
“I’m all about building long-term relationships, where clients bring us back every time they want to expand or make a change, which is what happened with Dan and Brenda,” Goon explains. “First we did the installation for Ruby and then, when they bought the building for Clementine, they brought us back to help again. To make this kind of relationship work we need to be installing equipment that we know is going to be reliable as well as fit for its purpose.”
To deliver the level of flexibility that Dan Cook wanted, Goon specified 52 ADJ UB 9H 1-meter linear LED wash fixtures to illuminate the exposed brick walls and the vaulted ceiling of Adelaide Hall. Each of these compact battens features nine 6-Watt HEX LEDs, allowing for color washing using an almost unlimited palette of colors.
In addition, Goon’s team mounted six ADJ COB Cannon Wash fixtures to the rafters in the ceiling, angled to point down at the floor. These serve as house lights for the room, allowing clients to dim the lighting and change its color to achieve the exact look they need. Each COB Cannon Wash unit features a powerful 150-Watt quad-color COB LED and offers a wide 80-degree beam angle, meaning that the six of them together are more than capable of filling the entire space with a uniform wash of bright light.
To provide flexible illumination across the venue’s two stages, Goon specified a combination of ADJ’s 12P HEX and PAR Z100 3K fixtures. Each loaded with 12 12-Watt 6-in-1 HEX LEDs, the 12P HEX units fill the stage areas with vibrant color washes. Meanwhile, the PAR Z100 3K units, with their 100W warm white COB LEDs, ensure that performers on stage can be clearly seen.
The organ in the room
An imposing feature of the main sanctuary when the Cooks bought the building was a large pipe organ dating back to 1905. Originally they intended to remove the instrument and find a new home for it in another church, but in the end they decided to keep it and make it a key feature of Adelaide Hall. This proved to be a good move that not only provides a focal point for the room, but preserves some of the building’s heritage and ties into Nashville’s music culture.
To visually link the main hall with the Little Bird Lounge behind it, the Cooks installed a glass wall in the lounge that provides a rear view of the organ. Goon then supplied a pair of ADJ 5P HEX LED par fixtures to sit inside the space and illuminate the vintage internal workings of the instrument. (While installing the fixtures, a member of the Corner Audio & Video team came across a recital bulletin dating back to 1924.)
The combination of the ingeniously placed glass wall and ADJ LED illumination provides Little Bird Lounge a unique feature, while the organ itself serves as an impressive backdrop to one of the stages in Adelaide Hall. However, the organ is more than an aesthetic feature of Clementine, it has been meticulously maintained – by the same company since the 1960s – and was recently fully renovated so it can be played if an event requires authentic organ music.
Completing the extensive lighting installation, Corner Audio & Video's team fitted LED pixel tape, from ADJ’s sister company Acclaim Lighting, around the perimeter of a number of the venue’s steel gothic windows, as well as around the organ arch and coat closet. The team also wired up the system using a pair of ADJ D6 Branch DMX splitters and set it up for control using ADJ myDMX 3 software.
The end result is a beautiful space that combines modern sensibilities and historic charm to provide a versatile, adaptable venue for any event.
