The Collectors Lounge at The Winter Show in the Park Avenue Armory. The room was designed in the late nineteenth century by Stanford White and Louis Comfort Tiffany in the American Aesthetic Movement style, with a barrel vault basketweave pattern ceiling with silver medallions, Tiffany stained glass windows, and an inglenook fireplace. Here, design and antiques dealer Cathy Lerebours (Lerebours Antiques) and interior designer Guillaume Coutheillas (frenchCALIFORNIA) teamed up to create an opulent setting for visitors to pause and reflect, or refresh and revel, in an atmosphere of artistry and brilliant curation.




Guillaume Coutheillas and Cathy Lerebours Mix Past Craftsmanship and Present Innovation at The Winter Show




by Benjamin Genocchio 



Warm, inviting, and cozy are words that come to mind when entering the Collectors Lounge in the Louis Comfort Tiffany and Stanford White-designed Library Room at the 2025 Winter Show, on view through February 2 at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. This year, the fair invited New York design and antiques dealer Cathy Lerebours to furnish the space, drawing on her distinctive, eclectic taste for objects ranging from 18th-century Continental furniture to 1940s French design to ultra-contemporary bespoke makers. 




Left: Bespoke Sculptural Brass Totem Lamp by Atelier Tison. Right: Bespoke Plaster Brutalist Console by Auberlet et Laurent.



The Winter Show invited the interior designer Guillaume Coutheillas, founder of his firm frenchCALIFORNIA to design the room. He describes his vision for the lounge as a dialogue between past craftsmanship and present innovation. “It was a challenge to curate a space in this room, which was conceived as a library with its vast vaulted ceiling, mahogany wall paneling, ironwork, and Tiffany stained glass windows,” Coutheillas says. “I tried to be true to that original concept, mixing and matching styles and periods for comfort, calm, relaxation, and contemplation.”



Lerebours Bespoke Oak Rushed Gabriel Chairs, inspired by French designer René Gabriel’s 1950s designs.


Aguirre Design’s 2023 limited edition Eron Console in ebonized walnut and polished and patinated cast bronze.



The result is a masterful display of interior design in which objects and furniture as diverse as Peter Lane lamps mingle with mid-century Italian armchairs, a fabulous, bespoke bronze candelabra by French artist Alina Alamorean, elegant cast bronze tables by Aguirre Design, a bespoke plaster brutalist console by Auberlet et Laurent (a venerable French plaster company established in 1873), Dora Stanczel’s custom-made 3-legged porcelain tables and Juan and Paloma Garrido’s quartz tables plated in 24 karat rose gold.



Above: Spanish brother and sister team Juan and Paloma Garrido’s Small Quartz Low Table Set, 24 karat rose gold-plated, 2019, Spain

Below: The Garrido’s Myneral Daybed in satin bronze-plated metal with a seat upholstered in textured ivory wool. The piece is handcrafted and hand-embossed in their Madrid workshop, using traditional silversmithing methods.



“I wanted there to be a push-pull between the old and new, past and present,” Coutheillas explains. “The Armory is so old as a building, the room is old but beautiful in its period style with a mixture of different kinds of craftsmanship at the highest level in expensive materials—mahogany, bronze, wrought ironwork, and stained glass. I followed this thread in what I chose to include, looking for objects in bronze, woods, and stone, exhibiting fine craftsmanship and a sculptural quality that mirrored the nature of the space overall.”




Left: Peter Lane, bespoke ceramic Accordion Lamp  Right: Dora Stanczel, bespoke 3-Legged Mona Porcelain Table, France, 2024



Lerebours gave Coutheillas free rein to choose whatever he wanted from her inventory, including artworks. “I was especially pleased that he chose to include ‘Visitation’, a 1994 bronze sculpture by the late American artist Elizabeth Strong-Cuevas,” she says. “Her work deals with philosophical, psychological, and cosmic concepts. She has fallen out of the limelight since her death in 2023, but her contribution to American art deserves greater recognition and acknowledgment.” One of her monumental outdoor sculptures is on permanent exhibition at The Pocantico Center in Tarrytown, New York.




Left: Cast bronze Dune Side Table by Aguirre Design  Right: "Visitation” bronze sculpture, Elizabeth Strong-Cuevas, 1994



“The process of working with Cathy was really relaxed and easy. She let me consider everything she has from vintage furniture to custom and bespoke pieces by artists from Spain and France to which she has special access. There is a strong core of contemporary French artists and artisans in her gallery which is a new, exciting area of interest for Cathy. It is exciting to me, as well, to work with artists making bespoke pieces,” Coutheillas says.


Collectors' lounges at fairs are traditionally spaces for people to hang out, have a meeting, or enjoy a drink. They are meant to be casual and relaxed spaces. Coutheillas, in an inspired move, put a bar at the back of the room in front of a fireplace. “I used a custom credenza that Cathy designed as a bar to give character and interest, but more importantly, the placement worked in terms of the flow and functionality of the room as it left open a central corridor which invited people to move deeper into and around the space to explore.”