How to support a beam.. nicely?

I am redoing the kitchen.
in this picture from before, you can see there is a oak looking decorative pole between the pony wall and the ceiling beam that separates the kitchen and the dining room.


See here the under construction image:
The pony wall is lower now and a gray quarts counter will be used for the kitchen and for a bar extantion between the kitchen and the dining room. Sadly, I thought I can keep it open with no pole


but this is what the beam looks like where the old pole meets it:


so my question is:
Considering I have gray quarts bar and counters, and Maple shaker style cabinets.. what are my options for putting there as support? and where do I find/but them?
the contractor offer to put some wood, but what type? how will it look? any metal or more sophisticated options?
remember, I would like the open look...

 

Seems to me that no matter what you do that beam and post will simply serve to define the beginning of the kitchen space without closing it off.


Although If you're putting in Maple Shaker style cabinets, what do you think about cladding the post w/maple in a simulated shaker frame and panel look and show it off? Yeah, that suggestion would be at the opposite end of the budget spectrum!
Plenty of options.

 

The support was put there for a reason, as you uncovered. Unless you replace the beam across the entire opening with possibly a triple LVL beam, you most likely won't be able to complete your project. The reason I say that, is you need support in that particular place. If you have quarz countertop, it will not take the weight of a post sitting on it. the weight will need to transfer all the way to the basement foundation. With an LVL beam, you can eliminate the post entirely, but it will be more work. I would have the blessings of an engineer to find out what size LVL and how many laminations you will need.

 

replacing the beam is not an option. the support is toocomplicated and it is a big porject.
we will just replicate the same type of support we took out, it was a wood pole supported by the ponny wall. We will put a pole that is just like that, not to the basement (we don't have one BTW, we have a crawl space.)
The pole will go from beam to ponny wall "wood" which is in turn built on the wood floor. If that what it was originally, should be enough.

my quesion was really, how do I decide on my options on teh cosmetic of this pole. Where do I see options/ideas for how such a pole will look like (a normal 2x4 from home depot deoesn't look that cool)