Bar Laurent
Closed, it keeps its own counsel — a little over eighty inches of oiled fumed eucalyptus, smoky and close-grained, standing on a low plinth. The pulls are cut into the doors and drawer fronts rather than applied to them, so nothing interrupts the grain as it runs across the face. Nothing about the exterior announces what it holds, which is the better manners of the two. Open, it is another proposition. The interior is oiled teak, honeyed where the exterior is smoke, and that contrast is the whole argument of the piece.
A counter of polished black granite divides the cabinet at the waist and gives you a surface to work on that will forgive spilled bitters. Three drawers float just above it: two for the small equipment of the thing, and a third, lined in leather, housing the controls for the lighting and ventilation. Behind, a bronze mirror pushes the depth back and doubles the bottles standing in front of it; a bronze glass shelf carries whatever earns the second look.
The lighting is what turns the cabinet into a lantern — the interior and the doors both. Each door holds three shelves, each with its own blotter and rail — all of it leather-wrapped and hand-stitched in Italian hides, the rails there to keep the bottles honest on the swing.
Below, a Sub-Zero Designer Undercounter Wine Storage and a Beverage Center sit side by side, so that the red is at its temperature and the tonic is at its own. For clients who would rather not give the space to refrigeration, or who have it elsewhere, the Bar Laurent can be specified without the units and the lower cabinet given over entirely to storage.
It takes a team six months to build one. That is a considerable quantity of cabinetry in the service of a drink before dinner, which is, one could argue, exactly the point.
Dimensions: 53” W x 26.5” D 80.5” H
See Tearsheet for more detailed information.
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