Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was La Cantera, a luxury resort in San Antonio, TX. Starting in July 2014, the multi-part project spanned almost a year and while the result was one beautiful resort, there were actually three completely separate projects that made up La Cantera: The Sire Bar, which we did two floors for, and the Sweetfire Bar.
The talented Mark Cary Looney & Associates, interior designers out of Dallas, worked on both projects. Looney was inspired by a single image for the floor of the Sire Bar and from there, the process began. The design they wanted was an octagonal basket weave with an accentuated grain called a Ceruse finish. With cost in mind, we were tasked to design flooring as close to the image as possible. A difficult task, but we are always up for a challenge.
Octagonal basket weave with an accentuated grain for the Sire Bar
We put our in-house sample and CAD team to work and after many rounds of trial and error, we determined that the only option was to install the floor unfinished. While this process was more costly, it was the only way to give the client exactly what they wanted. The final flooring was a success and complimented the interior seamlessly.
The second floor was far less complex but just as beautiful. The Sweetfire Bar’s flooring was a straight plank pattern using European White Oak with a Ceruse finish, the same finish used in the Sire Bar. The beautiful long-length herringbone flooring with a straight plank border was inspired by a sample the client found on their own. Although it was love at first sight, the sample they found was a consumer floor and it was not ideal for a commercial setting because of the oils used.
European White Oak flooring featured in the Sweetfire Bar
This problem was not going to stop us from giving the client what they wanted. We created a replica in-house with a urethane finish much more suited to the commercial setting. The client loved the outcome but the materials used were slightly above the cost they were shooting for. We went through three more rounds of samples to nail down exactly what they wanted at the budget they needed.
