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Southern Charm Newcomer Leva Bonaparte Shows Inside Her Luxurious Bar
The Charleston nightlife queen's bourbon and champagne bar is inspired by Gucci and Mad Men.
Leva Bonaparte and her husband, Lamar, are a total power couple. Together, they own a number of restaurants and bars in Charleston, and the Southern Charm newcomer recently shared a tour of their fabulous bourbon room, Bourbon and Bubbles, with BravoTV.com.
In the video above, Leva shows off all of the carefully-curated design details of the gorgeous space. Inspired by the elements typically associated with both bourbon and champagne, each piece of the space perfectly reflects the theme. Bourbon N' Bubbles features two rooms — one for the whiskey, and another for champagne. Leva also explained that when working with a designer, she said that she wanted it to "feel very Gucci... but Mad Men at the same time," and from the looks of the space, she nailed it.
“All the marble and everything we imported into the space was brought in from Italy,” Leva explained as she walked through the bourbon room. “It’s very bourbon-inspired in the front of the restaurant. It’s a lot darker, a lot moodier.”
The front room also features a section of personal liquor lockers, belonging to prominent southern families.
“We are in the south, folks, so people are really proud of their family names,” Leva explained, also noting that Patricia Altschul even has her own customized liquor locker.
As for the bubbly room? “Here, you’ll see that everything is a lot rounder, bubbly. You can take a look at the lighting, which I felt looked like bubbles in champagne,” she said.
Another major aspect of not only Bourbon and Bubbles, but all of Leva’s restaurants, is lighting. With chandeliers imported from overseas and an ideal selfie-taking situation in the bathroom, the lighting is always front of mind when she’s designing a space. “Everyone knows our establishments have great lighting,” she said.
Southern Charm returns for Season 7 on Thursday, October 29 at 9/8c. Catch up on the entire series through the Bravo app, and get your first look at the upcoming season, below.
