#white's

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).

Part 1|Part 2

I didn't have much at all on the second or third floor, mainly just a few descriptions.

The Layout

There's some written description about the second floor documenting that there aren't any bedrooms for members but there are meeting rooms, so I made the decision to make two dining/board rooms, another bathroom, and a library. Because other clubs have libraries.

The Second Floor

Meeting Room One

I wanted to bring in colors I hadn't used elsewhere, so I chose this pinkish wallpaper and used red/pink paintings. I used some of the largest paintings I have on this floor.

Anteroom

I used this space for a large painting, another phone, and a little desk.

Meeting Room Two

I wanted more green here, complemented by a large landscape of Windsor.

The Library

The space this occupies in the actual floor plan is rather small, so it's unlikely this exists, but I love building libraries and I had little guidance for what was in this space. I had a lot of fun with this room, putting together a space in which you could curl up with a book or a newspaper by the fire.

The Third Floor

Servant's Quarters

I used the top floor as servant's quarters, with a few bedrooms and a living/kitchen/dining area.

The Roof Scape

The actual above scene of White's club from google maps. It's a royal confusing mess. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the layout of the upper floors from the roof line. It resulted in a huge exterior staircase, and several small rooms. One hosts a bathroom, another some work equipment, like a wood table.

Conclusion

I had a lot of fun putting this build together. It was frustrating and confusing, but enjoyable and I'm going to use this in many saves to come, as a place for my posh male sims to have club meetings and get away from their wives.

Part 1

Time for the first floor!

The Coffee Room

The Coffee Room spans the first floor of the front of White's and from its windows St. James' St. may be observed. I was able to track down the largest number of references for this room, though most are from the same angle and all face the same direction. Unfortunately, I couldn't mimic the ceiling (I did find cc vaulted ceilings, but they weren't going to work with everything else for building reasons). One of my favorite things about the whole build was trying to track down the paintings. I'm relatively certain I have the right paintings shown in the black and white photographs. I made five pieces of cc furniture for this room alone, as well as numerous paintings and several modifications to others' or previously done cc, just to make it work. Originally I did the room in green, until I found the painting and photo showing it's in fact red (which meant recoloring several things I'd already done in the other color).

The Card Room

I only had the single picture to work from for this one. The mirror isn't quite right, but it serves its purpose. It's also one of the few pieces I've ever retextured completely from scratch.

The Back Dining Room

This was a tricky little space to work with, due to a lack of photos to work from and the colonnade at the back wall. I kept its stated use as a dining room, though I think it's since just become a conference room.

Miscellaneous First Floor Spaces

There's a good deal of unlabeled space on the floor plan. I turned one bit into a kitchen, as that seemed a useful thing to have (I suspect any actual kitchen is in the basement of the building, but floor constraints prevented me from building down). I also added a little reading nook behind the back dining room.

I'm usually pretty good about not impulse buying, but I got an email that one of the books on my ThriftBooks wishlist was for sale and I hit add to cart so quick!

It may not look like much, but it's a social history of White's Club, one of the fancy English gentlemen's clubs that were so important in the Regency era. For one it has pictures/illustrations of the club, which are pretty hard to find (I know; I've looked), and I'm looking forward to whatever information I can steal out of it. Not that I need to add a book to my long list of things to take notes on, but, oh well! Did I mention that to get free shipping I also bought another book on Waterloo?

I've had this on my wishlist for over a year, but I never expected to actually buy it because it gets listed for what I consider unreasonable amounts of money. Which does make me wonder if it's going to be in awful (though listed as good!) condition, because I paid about $9.50 for a book that other sites list for prices between $48 and $950.