The bar association
BY EVAN _WILLIAMS Florida Weekly Correspondent

PHOTO EVAN WILLIAMS Ronald Kopko, owner of The Bar Association in downtown Fort Myers shares a laugh with friend Kami Cohen. Kopko is an interior designer who revitalized the old Olivia's on Hendry Street.

There is one patch of paint left on the wall from the short-lived bar on Hendry Street called Olivia's - a place where gangs of youth and professional drinkers co-mingled in gloom, and a big Rockabilly bartender lurked in his cramped space with a splintered baseball bat close by.

But all the dust and darkness and gloom that defined Olivia's is gone, and today that patch of paint is covered by an Indian tapestry made of vintage wedding gowns.

There is a baby grand piano in the corner now, and a spectacular bouquet of fresh flowers bursting out of a basket behind the bar. Windows contain a view of a lantern-lit courtyard with tables dressed in white linens. On the other side of the courtyard, windows look in on intimate, elegant dining rooms.

One of the rooms near the back contains nickel slot machines; winners get coupons good for food here. Another houses the kitchen, which is freshly painted white, and homey - no industrial stoves or vents, no enormous metal racks or walk-in freezers. The former bathrooms - once made distinctive by obscene though sometimes poetic graffiti, empty drug baggies, and toilets ripped from the plumbing - are now clean, working, and fanciful (both contain barber's chairs).

"One of the shops in here used to be a beauty salon," owner Ronald Kopko, 54, explains.

Mr. Kopko said he occasionally peaks behind the Indian tapestry of wedding gowns to remind himself what the place was before he started redesigning it with partner Mark Solomon, 48. They renamed it The Bar Association.

Mr. Kopko said his full-time job and education is in interior design. That has taken him to houses in St. Croix and Montana, apartments in Paris and Manhattan, and a chain of tanning salons in Pennsylvania, among other places. He is currently working on the interior design of a $7 million renovation at the Landings Country Club.

The Bar Association is comfortable in its elegance, charming, gracious, slightly mysterious, and exudes a sensibility that is both playful and romantic. Not surprisingly, the restaurants personality reflects that of Mr. Kopko, who points out that a piece of stained glass from Tiffany's, as well as antiques (some of them "priceless," he says very quietly, "although I wouldn't like to say how priceless"), and other decorative elements in the bar and restaurant, are for sale.

"It was never my dream (to own a restaurant)" Mr. Kopko said. "I was going to get an office for interior design here, instead I ended up getting a bar."

Mr. Kopko said the decision to open a bar (and then later decide to make it a restaurant as well) was made on the spur of the moment during the process of renting the space. He said it was due to "circumstance."

"The party just kind of moved from my house into this place," Mr. Kopko said. "You're basically dining in my design studio."

The wine list is impressive, containing a large and varied selection of wines from semidry gewürztraminers to easy-drinking tempranillos to complex yet stream-water clear pinot noirs (imagine that, if you can). Bartender Eric Ham, 27, also makes homemade Sangria - a good red one - and a delicious and refreshing white one.

"Eric is incredible," Mr. Kopko said. "He educates people as well as serves them."

Dishes include a bright, fresh ceviche - a salad of fresh seafood cooked by the acid from citrus, not by heat - stuffed dates, shrimp etouffee, goulash, and other comfort food. A warm almond cake for dessert is moist, sticky and aromatic. All recipes are from family or design clients, Mr. Kopko said.

One night a man at the bar treated everyone to an impromptu performance of part of Puccini's Opera, 'Pulgliachi' (it was as loud, bracing and thrilling as watching jumbo jets take off over your head); another night a welldressed, middle-aged couple from Manhattan dined quietly at the bar while local hipsters reveled in the courtyard; on another night everyone at the bar simultaneously threw handfuls of paper napkins into the air, to the climax of the song, "Love is in the Air," by John Paul

Young.

"If you're going to have an affair, this is the place to have it," Mr. Kopko admitted semi-guiltily.

There is a lounge singer on the weekends, a saxophone player in the courtyard on Wednesday nights, regular wine tastings, and themed nights such as "The Once In a Blue Moon Party," "The Tacky Tourist Party," "Mensday Wednesday," and "Bridezilla."

"We came here with friends one evening and had a wonderful time," retired Massachusetts State Trooper Frank O'Brien, 60, said. "We ended up spending the whole night here."

Mr. Kopko said his chosen profession will continue to be Interior Designer, but that he loves people - "meeting them, feeding them, giving them drinks" - and will continue to do so as long as they come to his doors.