The Muse — a cocktail bar in the Germania Building, Over-the-Rhine

Something beautiful, something to eat, someone to talk to.

A cocktail bar at 12th & Walnut, Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati.

Not open yet, but close enough to start counting.

The bar opens first
A delicatessen follows
Twenty-eight rooms are planned upstairs

Keep me posted Directions

The corner, after rain12th & Walnut · 2026

come in

A pink sour with a thick white foam in a coupe, seen from above on a dark marbled table, beside caviar canapes and a silver bowl of split figs — Still life with a sourPhotograph · September 2026

A hand lowers a skewer of basil, tomato and cheese onto a pale green cocktail in a coupe, on a slab of marble with a bowl of figs — A garnish, by handPhotograph · September 2026

II · At the bar

Classics, made the way they’re supposed to be.

Plus a few we couldn’t help updating.

The list starts with the classics, made properly, and goes on to house drinks that borrow from Spain, Italy and Germany. Some of them begin days earlier, as infusions.

The opening list arrives with the doors.

the table

Two women touch glasses over a low table laid with silver trays of olives, bread, blackberries and small plates, by candlelight — Two glasses, one trayPhotograph · September 2026

The shared table from above: a brass candelabra, a tall glass topped with foam, crackers, a tray of cheese and ham, grapes and figs — The table, from abovePhotograph · September 2026

III · At the table

Small things, eaten standing up.

Food for one hand, so the other can stay on your glass.

A short selection of refined finger food, made for a communal table and meant to grow. Spain, Italy and Germany are the starting points here too.

More for the table follows when the delicatessen opens next door.

look up

IV · Above the bar

Look up.

A ceiling of clouds, painted in place by Alex Frank.

Alex Frank spent nearly a year on the ceiling. Clouds cover it from wall to wall, and above the bar, figures come apart into them.

Fresco · painted in place · Alex Frank

the walls

V · On the walls

Pictures with other plans.

A series of allegories painted for The Muse, in which the old world keeps meeting the new one. They hang in the room. Here they hang in the order we’d walk past them, and any of them opens whole.

A woman floats above a blue night landscape, reaching toward a small satellite, painted like a Romantic nocturne — The Muse and Sputnik: Blue Nocturne The emblem, after dark.

Two women meet beside transparent modern chairs on an old garden terrace, painted like a Venetian pastoral — The Garden of Transparent Chairs An invitation, open and a little uncertain.

A woman in black with a white lace collar holds a space helmet under her arm, painted like a Dutch portrait — Before the Voyage A portrait, with the helmet under her arm.

Villagers skate on a frozen canal around a polished flying saucer, painted like a Dutch winter landscape — Winter Around the Saucer The village finds a use for the unfamiliar.

Three women on a gold ground turn a mechanism of ribbons and spheres that moves the sky — The Women Who Turn the Heavens The new heavens still depend on human hands.

A woman at a candlelit table keeps a place set for a guest nobody else can see, painted in heavy gold and living darks — The Guest Only She Can See A place at the table keeps a friendship alive.

A long table laid across a valley, bridging a gap between two hillside towns — The Table Across the Divide A table can hold a whole world.

Three friends picnic beside a river at sunset beneath a vast radio telescope, painted like a Claudean landscape — A Picnic Beneath the Listening Dish A vast ambition can become the setting for a small shared happiness.

Three women in a workshop cut and stitch a vast silver sail — The Sailmakers Three women cut the sail for a different kind of ship.

Classical statues climb down from their pedestals to join the people admiring them — The Statues Step Down Admiration becomes an invitation instead of a pedestal.

A Dutch vanitas still life with a gilded birdcage standing open beside a satellite and a half-peeled lemon — The Open Cage Possession and care look different once the door is open.

A Dutch still life of fruit, glass and silver in which the objects have begun to float — The Weight of Plenty Abundance, once the rules that hold it change.

look down

VI · Underfoot

1877

The sky over 12th & Walnut, in brass.

Brass inlaid in the parquet records the sky over this corner at midnight on 1 January 1877, the year the building was completed. Her exact opening date is unknown; we chose the first night of the year.

how the room was made

VII · By hand

Born from a love of one building. Then shaped by many hands.

Behind decades of drywall were tall windows and sixteen-foot ceilings. Taking the later additions out brought the daylight back into the room.

The facade and the structure are original. Inside, we designed and built everything else for this room, from the crown moulding to the parquet. The work took about four years, with a pause of nearly two along the way.

People spent a great deal of time making this place. You’re welcome to take yours.

In the room

Crown moulding drawn to suit the height of the ceilings.
Layers of broken sculpture, partly exposed in cast concrete.
A slab of granite broke on the way in. The back bar is built from the pieces.
Tall windows, hung low enough to look out of from your seat.

Credits

Alex Frank: the ceiling fresco, painted in place over nearly a year
Johann Bast: the facade, 1877, with ironwork by Schreiber & Sons
Us: everything else, designed and built for this room

A hand with two silver rings holds a palette knife against pale plaster where a gilded edge has been worked into the wall — Gilding the plasterPhotograph · September 2026

Worn work boots on the rungs of a red ladder against a wall of unfinished ochre plaster — A few weeks outPhotograph · September 2026

VIII · Before you go, look up

The building
came apart.

She did not.

Johann Bast designed the Renaissance Revival facade; Schreiber and Sons made the cast-iron storefront and cornice. Above the door, Germania has stood through changes to her name, her appearance and the life of the building.

where she came from

IX · Provenance

The Germania Building.

Built in 1877 for the German Mutual Fire Insurance Company, the Germania carries the work of its architect and ironworkers, and traces of the city’s German history.

1858

The company begins

Henry Ratterman founded the German Mutual Fire Insurance Company after repeated fires left his German neighbours with unpaid claims from insurers that had gone bankrupt. He had arrived from Ankum at fourteen and worked in a lumber yard.

1877

A home at 12th & Walnut

The company built the Germania, designed by Johann Bast in the Renaissance Revival style, with a cast-iron storefront and cornice by Schreiber and Sons. Germania took her place above Walnut Street; a carving of Apollo driving four horses sits over the 12th Street entrance.

1917

A name concealed

When America entered the First World War the German name in the cornice was boarded over and Germania was covered with a black sheet. Within a few years she had been reworked as Columbia, with an eagle on her breastplate, flags on her shield and E Pluribus Unum carved into her gown.

1957

A familiar emblem

By 1957 the company was known as Hamilton Mutual, and Apollo and his horses still appeared in its newspaper advertising. Sputnik went up the same year. A coincidence we have made a great deal of.

2020→

The next life

We acquired the building in 2020. The bar opens first, followed by a delicatessen and, later, twenty-eight hotel rooms.

Building history drawn from Germania Building: History, Common Bond Consulting LLC, 2020.

Woodcut illustration of Germania standing in the arched niche above the building’s front door — Germania, above the doorWoodcut · after the facade of 1877

The name

Germania, abstracted.

The building is the Germania Building, after the figure above the door. The bar is The Muse: her name, abstracted, and a nod to the inspiration she gave us while we worked under her.

After a while, we realized we had fallen in love with the building. To us, the point of making something beautiful is for people to enjoy it.

The emblem

The mark, drawn; then as five painters might have had it.

The markWoodcut
Venetian duskOil · 2026
Baroque stormOil · 2026
Umber and ivoryOil · 2026
Silver morningOil · 2026
Blue nocturneOil · 2026

X · In order

First, the bar.

I

Opening first

The cocktail bar

Classics, small plates, and a room four years in the making. There is no dress code. We do love to see you looking your best.

Dressed for an ordinary eveningPhotograph · September 2026
II

To follow

A delicatessen

Next door, a few months after the bar, with more for the table and more for the bar.
III

Planned upstairs

Twenty-eight rooms

About a year after that, on the floors above the bar. The hotel entrance will be at 33 E 12th Street.