Let there be light: defining your club's image through creative lighting design.

It's December. The winter solstice is just days away, and light is at a premium. Since the beginning of time, people have had reason to be resourceful and creative in harnessing this life-giving commodity. Thomas Edison helped things along, certainly. But the technology of light was then just beginning. Today, new innovations are continuing to inspire elegant and efficient lighting options in every type of setting.

The Power of Light

Light has the upper hand in completing the decorating scheme of any given space. Exquisite carpeting, luxurious colors and fabrics, even the highest quality furniture is often lost to poor lighting choices. Interior decorators and architects agree that lighting is a fundamental element in design. The wrong choice can have devastating effect on the overall atmosphere of a room.

The good news: the right choice is often a subtle adjustment in color, intensity, or style. If the lighting is too bright, for example, it can have a significantly negative effect on the overall quality of the space. "Simply turn it down," said Sarah Stahl, interior designer of Shea Design. "By dimming the lights a little, you can hide the things that shouldn't be highlighted, and dress up the remainder of the setting."

Dimming the light does more than hide decorating flaws. A change from bright overhead lighting to perhaps a single fixture on every table will entirely change the environment in the room. The atmosphere will move from busy, celebratory, perhaps even frenetic, to intimate, warm, and relaxed.

Lighting choices can provide simple solutions for changing a decorating scheme without having to do a complete overhaul. By working solely with lighting, options, one can dramatically influence the ambiance of a room.

Roberta Olson, communications and public relations manager at Shea Design, likens lighting to a movie soundtrack. "Like music in a movie, light is the underscore, the highlighting, to a dining experience." Indeed, one is not apt to comment initially on the musical score of a movie. The plot, characters, and cinematography are all in the forefront. Such is the experience of the guest in a clubhouse: the furniture, the cuisine, the decor, the service; these things create lasting impressions. Underscored by the successful use of light, all of these features are dramatically enhanced.

Color and Mood

Major light effects start with color. According to Lois Burgner, contributing editor for Architectural Lighting magazine, "warm color temperatures enhance decors done in warm tones, including many woods, and are associated with a relaxed atmosphere and low light levels. Cool light sources are associated with brightly lighted, active environments." For clubhouses, and the hospitality industry in general, warm lighting is usually the best choice. Designers gauge color in lighting by measuring color temperature and the color rendering index (CRI). Color temperature effectively rates the relative quantity of blue light. CRI measures how well a source renders colors as compared to a "natural" light source with the same color temperature. A satisfying feeling of luxury and vitality can be obtained by using an excellent CRI source.

Incandescent and halogen bulbs produce the highest-rated color rendering, with a CRI of 99+. These two types of light sources, along with updated, high-CRI fluorescent light sources made specifically to replicate incandescent lighting, tend to make people feel the most comfortable.

James R. Benya, architectural lighting designer and contributing writer for Architectural Lighting magazine, commented on the popularity of creating a sense of drama with lighting techniques. "Clients request a lighting scheme that evokes a sensation of drama more often than any other mood ... Dramatic environments are emotional, entertaining, and exciting (Architectural Lighting, 1988)."

Benya noted that one of the best ways to create drama with lighting is by over-highlighting, thereby creating plenty of light/shadow contrast. Down lights, candles, a fire in the fireplace, and pin spots are all examples of dramatic mood lighting. In the club environment, it is popular to pursue a certain element of drama in the decorating scheme.

Behrle Club Consultants is an interior design firm that specializes in working for country and city clubs throughout the east coast and beyond. Gina Marcovecchio, senior designer at Behrle, recommends replacing club lighting with a dimming system in order to create a dramatic atmosphere.

Kay Langdon, vice president of Behrle Club Consultants, recommends the popular Lutron System to nearly all her clients. Lutron provides a technology for clubs to create mood lighting through an advanced dimming system. A central panel board controls the entire clubhouse so that lights can be dimmed at different levels at different times. The system allows for approximately 10 moods per room.

"It is a system that creates a balancing of light," says Langdon. Langdon admits that Lutron costs a bit more than other dimming systems, but that it is well worth the expense.

Keeping Up With The Joneses 

A compelling reason to freshen up your image with lighting updates may stem from a changing membership. Perhaps the general face of club membership has changed from families to young professionals. The new members are likely to

have discerning tastes; they are frequently out on the town, sampling the latest trends, and come to you well aware of what's fresh and exciting. Stahl noted that in this day and age, "Everything's been done before; there are no new niches to create. Lighting is one way of keeping up with the Joneses."

Lighting is no different than other elements of fashion; trends are constantly changing. In order to stay competitive, it is wise to keep an eye on the trends. Gina Marcovecchio of Behrle Club Consultants listed the quartz halogen as a key lighting trend in high-end dining establishments that are now popular in clubhouses as well. The quartz halogen has an intense mood lighting effect that lights up an individual table with a warm, intimate ambiance, causing surrounding tables in a room to effectively disappear into the darkness.

These light fixtures can be mounted on the ceiling directly above a table. Or to bring the lighting out as a more prominent design feature, hang an interesting fixture on a cord so that it is suspended just above the table.

Trends in decorative lighting are changing with the times as well. Mod-retro fixtures are in. So are geometric shaped shades. Cylindrical, rectangular, square shades are replacing pleated shades to bring fixtures up-to-date. Sconces, too, can move from passe to trendy by simply changing out fluted, etched globes for a frosted cylinder. Stahl, who specializes in restaurant interiors, believes the hottest trend in lighting is all about color. She described an example of the use of color and light in a bar setting: "We're seeing barbacks that fade to cobalt blue as the night crowd rolls in," said Stahl.

In Stahl's opinion, Color Kinetics, a hip, young company who has invented a full spectrum digital lighting system operated by a computer program, is at the cutting edge of lighting design.

Colors may progress from blue to green to yellow along coved ceilings in a long corridor. Or, in a restaurant, set the light effects to move with the changing crowd over the course of an evening. Early diners may prefer subtle auburn backlighting, while the late night crowd might enjoy more festive, bright colors lighting up the room in strategic locations. The effect of color on the mood in the room is pronounced.

Environmental and Economic Efficiency

Aside from touching up the esthetic environment of the clubhouse, updating the lighting can dramatically improve energy efficiency. New technologies in lighting are constantly improving upon efficiency issues. Take dimming systems, for example. Dimming systems are a classy, versatile design feature that, by definition, also happen to cut down on energy use. Lutron Electronics Company, the company responsible for the original dimmer switch, reports that an incandescent lamp life is extended 20 times longer, with 40 percent of electricity saved, by dimming the light level to 50 percent.

Fluorescent lighting, once taboo in hospitality settings, has a new, expanded range of color temperature that gives these bulbs the ability to replicate the warm, luxurious feeling of the incandescent. Fluorescent bulbs last significantly longer than incandescent bulbs and burn at a lower wattage. This causes the light source to provide the same amount of light but with reduced electricity usage. According to the American Lighting Association, compact fluorescent bulbs produce three to four times more light than an incandescent bulb, and last about 10 times longer. Fluorescents are ideal for locations where lights will be left on for several hours at a time.

There are many other ways to minimize waste (and cut costs while you're at it). When selecting lighting sources, choose longer-lasting, durable materials to prevent failure and require less frequent replacement. Choose a design scheme that uses fewer, more effective lighting fixtures to achieve design goals.

Wherever possible, integrate daylight into a lighting scheme through creative and optimal use of windows and window treatments, skylights, and entryways. Lastly, a seemingly obvious but not so widely used rule of thumb: Remember to turn the lights off when not in use. Consider the savings, as well as the benefit to the environment; both compelling reasons to make energy-wise improvements to clubhouse lighting.