Taking a cue from modern design
[Times photo: John Pendygraft]
Eric Kreher, left, vice president of RBK Architects, and Chris Bell, president of the company, believe their contemporary pool tables fit better in many people’s homes than bulkier, traditional models. “It’s the essence of what a pool table should be. It’s not elaborate. It’s plain. The pockets are exposed. The emphasis is on function and structure,” Kreher says. Behind them is the $9,895 model.
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Most pool tables are bulky and ugly, but they don't have to be, say two designers who came up with a sleek contemporary version.
By JUDY STARK, Times Homes Editor
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 27, 2002
[Times photo: John Pendygraft]
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TAMPA -- When Chris Bell and Eric Kreher couldn't find a contemporary pool table for their new beach house, they decided to build one themselves.
They're architects and furniture designers, so they know how to do this sort of thing. They built it, and they like it.
So do a lot of other people, including Keyshawn Johnson of the Bucs and Jermaine O'Neal of the Indiana Pacers. The corporate offices of Coca-Cola in Atlanta are graced by one of the tables, made of stainless steel and Honduran mahogany. Ads in the slick shelter magazines Dwell and Interior Design brought some phone calls.
Now, after a recent appearance on MTV's Cribs (when the show visited Johnson's home) and with the grand opening in May of a retail showroom in Miami, they're hoping their contemporary pool table will make a bigger splash.
The table has slender steel legs and rails made of mahogany, maple or cherry, stained and finished to a silken gloss. The playing surface is inch-thick slate -- this alone weighs 500 pounds -- covered in felt in a choice of 20 colors. The table, whose total weight is 1,200 pounds, meets the Billiards Congress of America requirements for regulation play.
Why a contemporary pool table, guys? What's wrong with the typical tables, those big-bellied, pseudo-Victorian affairs with massive carved legs and feet and polyurethane an inch thick on the wood rails?
Kreher: "I wouldn't have one in my house."
Bell: "They're ugly. They're all very big and bulky."
Typically, "You won't see a pool table in a modern environment," Kreher said, standing in the company office, a new-but-looks-old loftlike space in Ybor City, all exposed brick and ductwork. O Brother, Where Art Thou was projected on a video screen overhead, music played in the background, and office manager Karen Spisak's drum set stood in the center of the room. The staff work at desks they designed and built themselves.
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Jerry Snyder, who crafts pool tables for O8O Studio, a division of RBK Architects, works on a table at the company’s Ybor City workshop recently.
[Times photo: John Pendygraft
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"They're big, fat and flabby," Kreher said. "But there's no reason a pool table couldn't fit in. They're fun for family and friends and for socializing. This just fits in the beach house," which is on Don Pedro Island, between Sarasota and Naples.
Kreher went on: "This represents the way we feel about furniture and architecture. It's the essence of what a pool table should be. It's not elaborate. It's plain. The pockets are exposed. The emphasis is on function and structure. It's what we do in every piece of furniture. We wanted something that would look good and be warm: modern but not cold."
The architects and their staff at RBK Architects made the first table themselves two years ago. Now they've put it into production at their own shop a few blocks away, with a crew of 10, and started a separate company, O8O Studio, to produce the tables and other furniture they design: chairs, tables, desks, beds, dressers.
"Nobody here ever worked for a pool table company," says Hal Stacey, the production manager, whose background is in custom aircraft interiors and racing sailboats. "We figured it out. It was the ingenuity of the people that worked it out, like everything else we do."
There are two models. A powder-coated steel frame with welded legs and steel rails is priced at $3,795. A table with hand-polished stainless steel legs that are screwed on rather than welded, and with solid wood rails, is priced at $9,895.
"If the frame is here on Monday, we'll ship by Friday," Stacey said. It takes about a day to make the powder-coated table, about three days to make the hand-polished table, because of the amount of hand labor involved. The frames are made at a separate facility where O8O creates prototype furniture.
For the wood tables, the rails are cut and mitered, then workers jigsaw out the pocket holes, where black or chocolate-brown leather pockets are attached. The wood rails are sanded, stained and lacquered. If it's an all-steel table, the pocket holes are cut out with a water jet.
For both kinds of tables, a rubber cushion piece is attached to the inside edge of the rails. The rails are bolted to the slate bed through two layers of wood with special dome washers.
The slate comes in three pieces. When the table is assembled at its permanent location, the legs are leveled, then beeswax is poured into the seams between the pieces to assure a perfectly level playing surface.
It's at the final destination, too, that the installer stretches the felt over the surface and staples it to the edges under the rails.
By contrast, mass-market pool tables that start around $1,300 may have bases and rails made of engineered wood covered in vinyl or Formica. Some line the bed with fiberboard rather than slate, and the pocket holes are made of rubber. Custom tables can cost $5,000 to $10,000 or more.
When someone orders a pool table -- the company gets about an order a week now -- a local installer may assemble the table, or someone from O8O Studio may deliver and install it. "We prefer to do it ourselves," Spisak said. "There's less damage, and we know how."
It may also be cheaper to rent a truck and deliver it themselves than to ship it. When Jermaine O'Neal needed his pool table on very short notice for a housewarming party at his new home near Indianapolis, the company discovered it would cost about $4,200 to ship, more than the cost of the table. Instead, they put the table and a man in a rented truck and sent him off to Indiana, where construction workers at the home helped unload and set up the table.
RBK Architects designs schools, hospitals and commercial buildings, Spisak said, including the Port of Tampa building in Channelside.
Those who want their pool table to do double duty can order a three-leaved laminated wood top ($1,050 or $1,525, depending on whether the wood frame in which the leaves rest is solid wood or laminate).
Spisak recalled a customer in Chicago who ordered a table and placed it in his dining room, where the floor is equipped with a hydraulic lift to raise or lower the table to appropriate heights for dining or shooting pool.
"I don't play pool," said Stacey, the production manager who spends his days overseeing production of the tables. "I fool around, but I couldn't call myself a pool player."
Surfboard
To reach O8O Studio, call (813) 247-5223 or toll-free 1-866-254-7080. The Web site is www.O8O.com. (Note that those are letter O's, not zeros, and the name stands for nothing, office manager Karen Spisak says.)
The Billiards Congress of America's specifications for pool tables are available at www.bestbilliard.com/resources/specs.htm
The United States Billiard Association Web site is at www.uscarom.org. It includes a history of the sport (billiards developed as an outdoor game in the 15th century in France), schedules and results of tournaments, news, membership information and links to other sites. Those who wonder why applying side-spin to the ball is called "putting some English on it" will find their answer here.
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