Katy Horovitz: Rethinking Event – Hospitality with Châteauform

I recently had the privilege of speaking with Katy Horovitz, who founded Châteauform in 1996 with her husband Jacques. Working closely together, this couple of hospitality welcomes business conferences and seminars into residential venues thoughtfully designed to maximize their participants’ sense of business and pleasure. Perhaps nothing says it better than Châteauform’s own stated philosophy: “to offer each participant the opportunity to enjoy an environment dedicated entirely to work, reflection and relaxation in an atmosphere that makes them feel at home.”

What characterizes your homes in terms of construction and design? What is your role in the renovation of your establishments? How is the spirit of your brand embodied across these various houses?

Katy Horovitz
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn

Katy Horovitz

 

“I design to make you feel at home… and I hope to surprise you from time to time.”

There are several stages for dressing up a home:

1st stage -> We ask ourselves:

What is its architectural style? What are the dimensions of the rooms? How are the spaces going to be defined to match the needs of our conference members in addition to the administrative and architectural constraints, not to mention the constraints of the conference rooms? How do we respect the walls, the woodwork, the flooring, the molding, all while creating new openings? How can we best use the existing spaces?

Next stage -> We come up with a theme:

The theme takes into account the architecture, the exterior spaces, and even sometimes the geographic location.

One of the reasons we have a theme is that it feels friendlier to be welcomed into tree-themed home where the rooms are called “Cedar” rather than identified by numbers!

Which is why Rochefort, this place of grandiloquence, very Hollywood in style, was unable to escape a cinematic theme…

Then, we construct a line of décor that corresponds to the site and the theme.

The Villa Galaratti Scotti, a designated palace from the 16th century, with all the magnificence of its original baroque frescos along its walls and ceilings… It struck me that we could furnish this ensemble using contemporary furniture: the clean lines leave the walls exposed for discovery.

My research from books, magazines, the Internet, and travels are, of course, indispensable for renewing my ideas each time. We always lean toward adapting to places, rather than the reverse, all while keeping in mind the crucial exchanges that take place with the decoration and construction teams.

Thank you for sharing this article with your friends