Masters of the Southwest: Louise McDermott Transforms Homes With Vintage Treasures and European Antiques

February 6, 2025

A master of blending old and new, this designer has built a thriving career transforming homes with vintage treasures and European antiques.

By Nora Burba Trulsson | Portrait by Carl Schultz; Photography Stephen Simms

Louise McDermott doesn’t like talking about herself much, preferring to fly under the radar, deflecting praise with wry humor and, instead, spotlighting those who have helped with her success. “Nothing I have ever done was planned,” says McDermott, relaxing in the den of a Paradise Valley home she’s recently renovated. “All my life, I’ve done everything by the seat of my pants.”

Nonetheless, her keen design sensibility has led her to create scores of interesting residential interiors around the Valley, noted for their airy, modern mix of antiques and vintage pieces, and to open Antiquities Warehouse, her 40,000-square-foot retail showroom that has become a go-to spot for design professionals, homeowners and collectors alike. The vast showroom is packed to the rafters with everything from antique French church doors and old tobacco store cabinets to mossy Willy Guhl planters, canoes and grape harvest baskets.

“Louise has such a good eye, and she’s cultivated great sources,” says interior designer Dana Lyon, a long-time Antiquities Warehouse client. “I’ve always been impressed by the depth of her collection, including the antique doors we often source for our new builds.” Interior designer Laurel Pfannenstiel agrees, noting that McDermott has become the local expert on obtaining European architectural elements that help make new homes authentic to a particular style. Pfannenstiel, though, visits the warehouse with a specific list to avoid getting overwhelmed by the sheer volume of merchandise. “You can easily get swayed by something in a corner or that catches my client’s eye,” she laughs. “But we’ll always try to find a spot for it.”

McDermott’s “unplanned” career as a designer and proprietor of a cavernous store filled with cool things was not exactly linear. She grew up in Michigan, played tennis and had dreams of becoming an architect. “I was a little remiss in the math department,” she says of her reason not to pursue architecture.

Instead, she started selling tennis gear and sportswear, opening a wholesale showroom in Chicago’s Apparel Mart, where she repped numerous lines. Along the way, she married, had three children, divorced and began helping friends decorate their homes. “I was just dabbling in interiors back then,” McDermott remembers.

A pal who had a home in Arizona invited her for a visit in the 1980s, and McDermott was smitten with the desert. “I was in my 30s with three kids and no money, but before I got back on the plane to Chicago, I put a down payment on a place at Gainey Ranch,” she remembers. “I don’t know what I was thinking, but it was the smartest dumb move I’ve ever made because it all worked out.”

“I’m a visual person. I can walk into a house and, within five minutes, tell what needs to be done.”

Louise McDermott, designer

Eventually, she decided to stay in Arizona permanently and began buying homes, redoing them and flipping the properties, assembling a team of craftspeople who could carry out her vision of deftly blending new with old. “We’d gut the houses, and then I would go to Europe to get a container of pieces to finish the project and stage the interiors,” McDermott says. “Pretty soon, everyone wanted to buy the stuff I brought back from Europe.”

Realizing the retail potential, McDermott found an industrial building in 2012 and spent more than a year renovating it to become Antiquities Warehouse, showcasing the eclectic architectural elements, furnishings and accessories she sourced from around the world. “It’s not a glamorous location,” she notes of the unpretentious property near Sky Harbor International Airport, “but we got it because we could afford it. Our clients have learned to find us.”

Not long after she opened, she was joined by antiques dealer Robert Pargmann, who became the showroom’s manager, and craftsman Lucas Ramirez, who heads the showroom’s shop, to customize antique pieces so that they fit modern homes. “I wouldn’t be here without their help,” McDermott says.

Though McDermott no longer goes on buying trips to Europe and relies on a network of experts to find treasures for her (often fielding 3 a.m. phone calls from France asking if she wants an item or two), she’s still hands-on in what she wants, sometimes going out on a limb to bring in oddball-but-interesting items. “One of the craziest things I did was to buy 1,200 litho stones that were once used in printing,” she says. “They weigh about 30 pounds each. When they were delivered, we had to use a forklift to move them, with three guys in the back for ballast so the forklift wouldn’t tip over.” The stones, she says, have found their way onto floors and as backsplashes for bars.

Now entering its second decade, McDermott’s showroom has attracted clients who seek the unique. A handful of celebrities have also flown in to pick up pieces for their homes, though McDermott remains tight-lipped about dropping names. Antiquities Warehouse pieces have found homes in local restaurants, such as Buck & Rider, and retailers including Ralph Lauren and Arhaus, which use rustic items as display elements. The pieces have also been shipped to clients around the world, including in Australia, Canada and South Korea.

“I like the unusual, the rustic, the stripped down,” McDermott says of her approach. “I love bleached woods and things with character and patina.”

Her items largely figure in the residential renovations she still handles, including the Paradise Valley home she completed for a single man.

There, she “de-Tuscaned” the original interior by squaring off arches, removing walls and brightening the interior with pale wood flooring, whitewashed stone accents and new windows.

Interior doors were replaced with antiques crafted to fit the openings, and furnishings were a mix of modern pieces, vintage case goods with great stories and conversation-starting accessories. Not one to rest on her laurels, McDermott is busy with other renovation projects in Arizona and Michigan, where she has a summer home and has opened a second location of her showroom.

In Phoenix, retail business continues to blossom, thanks to word of mouth and a robust Instagram following. “All of this just sort of happened,” McDermott reflects. “How did I ever think I could do this? But I never looked back, and somehow it worked.”