Acre Icehouse

Location: Lafayette, LA

Area: 15,571 Square Feet

Client: Acre Icehouse LLC

Acre Icehouse is a ground-up, indoor-outdoor gathering venue on the rapidly developing Camelia Blvd. corridor in south Lafayette. Sited on nearly three acres, the project pairs a 7,400-square-foot enclosed bar building with an equally generous covered patio and an open synthetic-turf yard, all held together under a single sweeping standing-seam roof. The result is a building whose interior is only part of the story — most of the guest experience happens in the shade of the existing live oak canopy and out on the lawn. 

The design centers on a long L-shaped main bar that anchors the floor plate, fronted by a large roll-up door that opens the main room directly to the covered patio. The plan also accommodates a private event space, a dedicated dog yard, and a rideshare pickup zone organized around the front of the property.

Because food service runs through rotating food trucks rather than a back-of-house kitchen, the architecture is freed to do what icehouses do best: maximize the social footprint. Operable rolling shades wrap the covered patio, hog-wire fencing defines the outdoor edges, and Trex composite decking and synthetic turf carry the patio program seamlessly across the lot. Several mature oaks — including a 62-inch specimen — were preserved on site and helped shape the parking layout, with aggregate paving wrapping the building in keeping with the casual outdoor character of the typology.