A Ghent pub and soccer-fan hangout becomes a dream home Not demolition, not excavation: The first thing Bert Pieters and Yves Drieghe did after buying a derelict former pub, with dreams of turning it into their home, was throw a party.
?A lot of people were nostalgic about the place. We didn?t really have a choice,? jokes Pieters. The ?place? in question was a trapezoidal 1930s building rising two levels on a corner site in Ghent, in northwestern Belgium. For years, the pub had been a popular watering hole for fans of local soccer team K.A.A. Ghent (also known as the Buffalos).

A view of the 1930s pub that?s now home to Bert Pieters and Yves Drieghe. The building?s glazed-brick facade?and the potential for a rooftop garden, a rarity in Belgium?charmed the couple.
Yves Drieghe (left), Bert Pieters, and their nine-year-old English Cocker Spaniel, Tilda, in the open-plan living and dining room on the second floor.

But when the league relocated, the pub saw its base diminished and went bankrupt; its owners were forced to sell. Pieters says he and Drieghe bought it ?on the spot? after a visit two years ago with their architect, from Belgian firm MAN Architecten (MAN), seeing beyond the ?mess? and ?smell? to the space?s potential as a post-commercial pub-turned-dream house.
?I think the neighborhood was quite panicked about it,? Drieghe wryly says about their new purchase. ?I think a lot of people thought we were going to open a...