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Slideshow: Man Caves

Show us your Man Cave! Submit your photos

It’s the latest in American home décor, something called a man cave.  It’s a place in the home dedicated to and decorated by the man of the house.

But as WHAS11’s Gary Roedemeier found out, the focus of the man cave really depends on the man who makes it happen.

When we think about a man cave, we think about a finished basement.  There’s the bar, the bats, the TV’s, the video games; surrounded by all things manly.

But Harry Head is a different man.  Harry’s cave will never fit in a basement.  He’s building a completely new addition.  It will be his golf cave.

Man has been playing golf in the great outdoors for centuries.  And golfers of the past have gone to the golf course.

But now golf comes to Harry.  This cave man will have a golf simulator.  The course could be pebble beach or one of 29 other courses. And it could be 20 below outside, but it will always be perfect weather in the golf cave.

But for a builder, there’s a lot of behind the scenes things that make a man cave, a golf simulator.  And the decor will be vintage man.

Harry is a hunter and photographer of small game.  He’s a hunter of trophies from the real estate game.  And he is literally, the first in his neighborhood to have indoor golf.  

Don Jenkins says he’ll be done with the cave installation in about a month and he’s hoping for more.

A golf simulator in your house will cost about as much as a nice luxury car. But you never have to leave the house and it doesn’t use a drop of gas.

Do you have a man cave in your home?  You can submit your pictures and view a slideshow of other man caves on this site.

Web story updated by Chris Wright

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Now to a story for and about men. Have you ever brought home a trophy from a hunting trip, or a golf tournament, or a road race, and started looking for the best place to display your manly accomplishment?

Then enters your wife, who says, “Honey, I think that would look great in the basement.

Sounds like banishment to me.  But seize the moment. Take it to the basement and make it your own.  Make it what is now called your “Man Cave.”

In the beginning there was man, who was king of his castle.  His cave was safe and secure from the dangers of pre-historic life.

But over the years, man’s place in his home has gradually eroded.

Stone was replaced by cotton.  Earth tones became pastels. More and more homes were decorated by women, and men found themselves surrounded by ruffles and floral prints.

But recently, man has been re-claiming his cave.

Champ and Biscuits is in the basement of the Smith house.

You’re shoes clank on a metal fire escape as you descend into the place that Randy Smith created for his family.  Smith designed it with his two sons in mind.

“So that if they spilled something, you could just mop it up. That the boys wanted to throw a tennis ball against the wall, pitching or whatever, they could do it,” says Randy.

The floor is stained concrete, like a ...well, like a real bar.  And the bar holds a hundred years of history.  

“This came out of the Churchill Downs Blues Bar. It was right outside the main entrance to Churchill Downs on Taylor Boulevard. And they were gonna tear down the bar to make extra parking and I snuck over a couple of days before they tore it down,” says Randy.

Then it was contractor Todd Stengel’s job to get the huge bar, and a steel fire escape through a basement door.

“But we had to get in through the kitchen and enlarge the opening for the door and all that. And that’s where we tried to hurry up and he threw the deadline of the derby,” says Stengel.

Plus Randy would call every morning with a new idea for his basement.  He was collecting bar stuff and bar stories.   

“In fact, one of my friends told this story about his buddy was 21-years-old and got shot at this bar,” says Randy.

But the violent days of the blue bar are past. And Randy’s wife Carol sees benefits to having a man cave downstairs.

“You can stay up there and send them down here. Yes, I love that part. But I know that they’re safe and there’s always playing pool and they can shoot darts, the can play shuffle board, play wii there’s just many activities down her that they can do,” says Carol.

Carol even hosts Bunco in the bar but there is one place she refuses to go.

“She’s allowed to visit. She just doesn’t go to the rest room down here. She doesn’t like that urinal in the rest room, but other than that everything is wonderful,” says Randy.

Wonderful, especially if you’re a kid.

It’s a man cave with a purpose.

Randy smith has surrounded himself with his boys and sports memories.

“But even when they’re not, I can look around and it brings back the best of times,” says Randy.

And the best of today.