As architects we obsess and agree with Wallace Stegner over the value of Place. And place is not a “place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, or monuments. Fiction serve as well as fact.”  Story needs a place to convene, to remember, to embellish and to inspire. Architecture can greatly influence the quality of place which in turn relates to quality of experience. How the sunlight hits your morning coffee mug, to where we take our naps, where we smile, the textures of surfaces, the ambience of a wood fire, where and how we break bread, the temperatures, the airflow, the change in weather patterns, the massing and scale all influence our sense of Place. Many of these things are also the same ingredients that lead to good aged whiskey. The marriage of architecture and whiskey is obvious to us, perhaps necessary. We design and build places around the country to inspire the art of “gathering”, to age good whiskey, and to toast Stegner’s idea of place

“making happiness its headquarters."