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Miami Ice [The Miami Herald](Miami Herald (FL) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) July 13--Husband and wife event planners Meg and Dean Holderman have an icy relationship. Literally. The transplanted Kansans own So Cool e-Venue, an Allapattah event space that boasts a fully licensed ice bar -- the only one in South Florida and one of the few in the country. Turn right at the main entrance, don the parka and mittens (plus fur-lined Crocs if you like) proffered by a staffer, pull open the heavy white door and step into a 1,000-square-foot space that looks like something out of the James Bond flick Die Another Day. Everything is made of ice, from the bar and the glasses on it to the fur-lined couches, the eight-foot carved polar bear and the cylindrical walls. About 50,000 pounds of ice, imported from Canada, went into the space, which is maintained at 24 degrees. The bar, bar back and couches were crafted by a Canadian company, disassembled and shipped here. It took five men, including Dean, working "four long days" to build and furnish the room. When the bar is full, with all 50 parkas in use, Meg, 49, estimates the combined body heat raises the temperature to 27 degrees. "A balmy 27," quips Dean, 50. The Holdermans left the corporate world of computer systems and accounting for event programming after relocating to South Florida in 2000. Dean designs and carves ice pieces, while Meg handles the sales and business end. Among other services, their company supplies LED lighting for events. The So Cool event space was born about two years ago after they purchased the 10,000-square-foot building, a former grocery distribution center. "We bought it just to be our warehouse and ice manufacturing facility, but some of the hotels on South Beach pointed out there wasn't a venue for large corporate groups coming into town that want to do one night off site. They talked us into it," Meg said. "We figured we'd give it a try. We do ice sculpting, so it's not like this freezer space would have gone to waste if it didn't work." Have a hankering to snag a souvenir shot glass? You're welcome to; glasses are used just once. But good luck getting it home before it puddles. Alcohol doesn't freeze, but mixers like soda have to be swapped every hour or so when they turn slushy. The staffers suit up in heavy winter clothes to work the ice bar. "I'm from the Carolinas where we throw that stuff on all the time in the mountains," says event manager Patrick Gallagher. "But for someone who has not grown up in that environment, you've got to get used to working inside a jacket with gloves on." The Holdermans, married 26 years and the parents of two University of Florida students, live in Key Biscayne. Working together is the most natural thing in the world, they say. "We complement one another really well," Dean says. "Meg's a CPA and has a more gregarious personality than I do so she's great at the whole accounting business function and a great salesperson for us, whereas I'm more creative." The biggest adjustment, he says, was at the end of the workday, which can be in the wee hours. "There was a challenge for me working together at first because I was real adept at shutting work off when I drove across the causeway. When I get home I unplug from work," Dean says. "Women don't work that way," Meg says. "When we come home, right at first, I get my 20 minutes to bitch and then I quit talking about it, which is better for both of us. "People say, 'How can you work with your husband?' I say, 'How can you not have a partner who is your husband who you trust so much?' If I question him, or vice versa, you don't take it personally." The Holdermans say they handle about three major events a month, from corporate events to quinces, with or without the deep-freeze bar. "Our hardest thing has been the location; no one knows about this area," Meg says. "We're only open for special events; this is not a nightclub." But word is spreading. So Cool has designed events, at the Allapattah party space and off site, for NCL, Heineken, Nova University, Miami Children's Museum and Art Basel. "The ice bar was a huge hit; there was probably a 20-minute line all night," says Wes McCann, student government president for Nova Southeastern University's College of Optometry, which held its Eye Ball, a $50,000 event for 400, at So Cool. Miami Children's Museum has used So Cool for its last two galas including a '70s-themed extravaganza in March that transformed the museum into a Studio 54 look-alike, complete with lighted dance floor. One tip-off that guests were in familiar territory: The museum's one-eyed, two-horned mascot, MiChiMu, was carved into a huge ice vodka luge, said Kelly Bresnahan, the museum's associate director of sales and events. A year earlier, for the museum's 25th anniversary gala, So Cool staged the event under a tent with ice chandeliers. "I never know what they'll come up with next," said museum CEO Deborah Spiegelman. Spiegelman couldn't resist visiting the warehouse to peruse the ice bar, and she liked what she saw. "Where else in Miami, when it is 90 degrees outside, can you find a place where it is 24 degrees and you need a parka and gloves?" ___ To see more of The Miami Herald or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.herald.com. Copyright (c) 2011, The Miami Herald Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail [email protected], or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544) |