When Preferred Living brought Crimson in on River House, the brief carried an unusual ask for a PL clubhouse: reach a younger resident (the 20s and 30s renters drawn to Harrison West and the Olentangy River corridor) and do it without leaning on the blue palette PL clubhouses had become known for. Instead, the room would turn on dark green (Sherwin-Williams 6994 Greenblack), golden yellow, and warm red-orange accents, a palette with more confidence and more edge, written for a crowd looking for a building that felt made for them. At roughly 7,000 square feet, the clubhouse footprint ran slightly smaller than the PL typical, and the amenity list inside it did not shrink to match — bar, game room, resident lounge, theater, reception — so every square foot had to work.

The key design move was the plan itself. Rather than carve the bar, game room, and lounge into separate rooms, Crimson designed one long, open social space, each zone clearly defined and visually collaborative with its neighbors. The reward is a room that encourages the kind of socializing a younger renter actually uses a clubhouse for, sit down at the bar and still read the game room, move to the lounge and still catch the conversation at the billiards table. Anchoring it all, at the room's midpoint, is a two-sided fireplace wrapped in oversized wood beams and columns, set over a checkerboard floor of honed white and dark stone tile that gives both sides of the room a center to gather around. Dark green cabinetry, warm golden accents, and confident patterns do the zoning the walls don't, so the room reads unified without ever going flat.

The Red Glove moment was the arrival. Between reception and the clubhouse, Crimson framed a walkway with full-height drapery — textured white panels banded in a bright green velvet trim — an intentionally grand, theatrical gesture that gives the resident a peek into the clubroom the second they step inside. This small detail made a big first impression and is the kind of detail that reads simple in a photo and was anything but in execution: drapery track, framing, sightlines, and lighting all had to land exactly right, and the coordination between trades was the whole story. Every inch of that reveal had to be choreographed so the clubroom glimpse beyond the drapery looked like the most natural thing in the world.

Residents and Preferred Living both read it the same way. The clubhouse feels confident, collected, and eclectic: a palette bolder than the typical playbook, a plan that keeps the room social by design, and a welcome moment that announces the building before you've set your bag down. A younger demographic, a smaller footprint, a fuller room — that's the River House case, and the reason a building along the Olentangy has held the energy of its target resident as cleanly as it has.