A friend put a fireplace in her the kitchen of her new house.
I wish I had thought of it. It is lovely. It is the place every one sits, out of her way, not around the table. Her kitchen is lovely and warm especially in the mornings. As for the mess of open fires, thats just the price you have to pay for the pleasure.
I saw an Architects house in some magazine, awful place - lots of guff about "spaces relating to each other", all slit windows and horrible hard orange chairs which he had specially commissioned to match some dreadful painting he had. But the piece de resistance was the stack of briquettes " to introduce an organic element". Now how more organic is the sight of an orange flame, a smell of wood burning, the feel of a warm fire, the sound of the crackling fire ( and maybe the taste of the smoke from the odd downdraught!!! ).
If you don't want the open fire, maybe one of the Stanley Stoves, with the glass door might be the thing. My mother has one and when it is lit it is so nice to look that you wouldn't mind if there was no heat atall from it.