AD Editor-in-Chief Reviews Her Favorite Celebrity Homes

My pet peeve is definitely houses without books.

Unfortunately, I see it.

I'm like, Where are the books?

You've gotta have books.

Hi, I'm Amy Astley.

I'm going to take you through

some of the most exciting and impactful homes

that we have published during my tenure at AD,

and they're all houses that are included

in our new book AD at Home.

[fun upbeat music]

People always ask me how do we choose

the houses that are in AD,

and the answer is that I look for things

that are visually original.

They're very personal.

To me, the people with the best style,

whether it's in the way they dress, the way they decorate,

the way they cook, the way they live their life,

it's personal.

They know who they are.

They know how they want it to be, to taste, feel, to look,

how they wanna feel in their clothes, in their home.

And so, I don't subscribe to good taste, bad taste,

good design, bad design.

I've definitely run houses in AD, that people have said,

I don't like that house.

And I'm like, Great, now we're talking about something.

[gentle upbeat music]

When I started at AD, I only had a few weeks

to pull together my first issue.

And so I was scrambling very fast, put together an issue

that normally I would spend six months working on.

And so, I reached out and Marc said yes.

We put his dog, Neville, on the cover

with his Instagram handle.

That was me announcing that it was a new day at AD.

And the printers thought it was a mistake

and they sent it back to ask us about it.

And I think he set the standard very, very high.

You know, like in my mind, I'm like,

Can it be as exciting as Marc's house?

It's very classic, and quiet, and old school chic.

Everything sort of whispers rather than shouts.

And then, the contemporary art is like bam.

It is statement making.

In his living room,

that incredible Paul McCarthy sculpture

that's like this wild, wild Disneyland kind of sculpture

in this very refined, very luxurious setting.

Marc is known for his incredible flights of fantasy

on the runway.

And then, the house is very tailored.

It's very chic. It's very elegant.

And that's why it's so amazing to go into people's houses,

it reveals so much about them.

So I think as a first statement for me at AD,

it shows you know what you think you know about someone,

you're totally wrong.

Because you have some preconceived notions about who he is

and then you see the house and you realize,

I don't know Marc at all.

I thought that was sort of very stealth

and just added to the mystery of his genius.

I love that.

[fun upbeat music]

Welcome to my fazenda.

Fazenda means farm.

I learned that from Lenny's Open Door,

as did I think millions of other people who watched it.

This is an 18th century coffee compound

that he's renovated for his life now.

It's a working farm.

In his incredible Open Door,

he talks about the farm to table lifestyle there.

And I would have to say that this is one

of the most extraordinary homes we've ever shown in AD.

He's an AD100 designer,

which I find a lot of people don't know about him,

but everything that you're looking at in this home

has been touched by his own hands.

He designed this house.

It's full of love. It's very organic.

It's full of black and white photos of his family.

He's a real connoisseur of design.

When we filmed, he had his band members there

and they come for long periods of time.

And you see how he interacts with the people

who work on this huge property,

taking care of the animals and the farmland

and of him and his guests.

And it's just a very warm place,

full of love for the people around him.

So, he has like a vintage Vladimir Kagan bed.

It's a bit aged and weathered, but that makes it better.

He has a piano that belonged to Ingrid Bergman.

He has a velvet chair that belonged to Andy Warhol.

He cares about the pieces in his home.

He knows where they came from.

He's obviously collecting things

with an interesting backstory.

Being in touch with nature in this way has changed his life.

He got in touch with his inner cowboy.

I think that speaks to the power of place

to transform a life.

Obviously, Lenny's a really lucky and fortunate person

and can live in ways that the rest of us can't.

But what's so touching is he's sharing it

with so many other people and he's very generous about it,

and I think that is special.

[fun upbeat music]

This building has a fascinating history.

It was a handball court in about 1869.

And then around 1950, it was transformed

into a brick factory.

And then in the 70s, the architect John Mockridge

turned it into a private residence.

Now, Troy Sivan, international pop star, owns it

and he sees himself as, you know, sort of the latest steward

in the most recent chapter of this incredible building.

Troy is really unique.

I mean, you don't see that many super young people

who are geeking out on design and architecture

and care so much about their environment,

but Troy definitely does.

And I think that Troy's had an amazing kind of influence

on young people.

The Open Door, was widely watched.

Quite often, they'll tell me it inspired them

to think more about their own personal space.

And Troy's absolutely obsessed with lighting.

I think the goal was to have like a soup of light.

You know what I mean?

I didn't want like hard overhead lighting

'cause no one looks good in that.

Just finding soft light just kind of gently fills the room.

What I love about how David Flack and Troy

approached the house is they didn't try to like clean it up

or tidy it up.

They embraced all the different materiality in the house.

So, it has the industrial vibe. It has cork on the ceiling.

It has steel. It has the beautiful old courtyard.

And they embraced every bit of its place and of its history.

And I think it just has a lot of soul,

but it's up to date, it's modern.

It's incredible how they managed

to weave the old and the new together.

He also made an outdoor bathroom in the courtyard.

He calls it the.

Outdoor toilet situation.

There used to be a toilet in the kitchen.

He said he always found

the toilet in the kitchen pretty gross.

No argument from me.

And he moved the whole thing out into the courtyard,

where you go into this insane bathroom

that has the music system and the incredible marble.

Troy said something that I thought was really funny

and charming about you know when you go in an amazing hotel

or an amazing restaurant and people say,

Oh, have you been to the bathroom?

Have you seen the bathroom?

He wanted that in his courtyard bathroom,

and he definitely got it.

Obsessed.

I think it's so dramatic and extra, and I love it.

[gentle upbeat music]

Hello, AD. I'm Sienna Miller.

Welcome to my cottage.

This is a 16th century thatched roof cottage that belongs

to the gorgeous, fabulous, talented Sienna Miller.

It's just like a dream.

She calls this cottage Thatch,

so it's incredibly cute and very British.

It is just so storybook.

[Sienna Miller] Thatch is funny.

It's like the biggest tiny house you've ever seen.

But it's an incredibly creative house that she did

with her friend Gaby Dellal, who's a film director.

It's designed, but it's not over-designed.

It's cozy. It's warm.

It's definitely elevated and stylish,

but not forbiddingly so.

To me, this is a house

that's about the life being lived in it,

and those are the best houses.

She talks about the crowds of people in the house.

It was obviously important to her

that a lot of guests can sleep over

and there are guest cottages.

[Sienna Miller] And this is what we call the outhouse,

where I send my friends who are madly in love

because it's very romantic.

The part of her house that I might love the most

is her own bedroom.

I think the way she and Gaby designed the bedroom

with the beautiful Maison C Wallpaper

and the bath is open to the bedroom,

and then the doors at the foot of the bed

that open out into the garden

is just like a heavenly romantic dream.

[upbeat music]

[fun upbeat music]

Suleika and Jon met, it's so adorable,

they met at band camp as teenagers.

They have a long romance, a real love story,

and an amazing couple.

Sadly, Suleika has been battling leukemia

and she was in remission for 10 years.

But at the point they were renovating this house,

it came back.

Rather than put their project on pause,

they doubled down on their renovation and insisted,

This is going to be our house.

This is going to be where we live.

This will happen. We will have a life here.

And so she referred to it as an act of defiance.

I felt so moved to be allowed into their private space.

They got married in the house, in the living room,

and they decided to make that commitment to one another

while she was ill obviously

and while they were renovating their house.

And I think a magic thing about houses

is it can really let you into the story of people.

And what these two, it certainly resonates.

Just the creativity flows out of Jon

and he just wants to be able to sit down

and play and sing and compose.

That's what a home should be about, right?

[gentle upbeat piano music]

They live with her artworks.

She's especially painted during her illness in the hospital.

I think to sort of make sense of it and to express herself.

And all these personal things are around them,

they talk a lot about things from Tunisia,

things that are from New Orleans where he's from,

and melding their two worlds together.

It's a place that reflects their spirit.

I also love their pink kitchen.

I think it's such a pretty color.

And I don't get many pink kitchens,

but theirs is really great

and I should see more pink kitchens.

Suleika really loves secondhand. She loves thrifting.

I mean, she's good at it.

She has this desk that was actually not thrifted

that Jon gave to her as a gift,

and it was Joan Didion's desk.

And she talks about the spirit

that comes through that desk to her.

But she also makes the point

that even if it was not Joan Didion's desk,

she still would've been drawn to this piece

in a thrift store, because the design of it speaks to her.

And that's why this house

has so much soul and so much character.

[upbeat music]

Bjarke is a really, really innovative thinker.

If he has to make a waste processing plant in Copenhagen,

he'll put a ski slope on the top or do the Lego Museum

and it's all made out of Legos.

As an architect, I'm fascinated by his work,

and I never would've imagined that he would choose to live

in a decommissioned ferry

that really functions as a lab for him.

He's really fascinated by the idea of floating homes

and how they are sustainable in our climate.

He mentioned to AD, that a houseboat

is the most resilient form of architecture,

and as sea levels rise, the home will move with the sea.

This is all a part of Bjarke's genius,

and everything about it is just sort of a delight

and a joy to look at.

I love the picture of him on the huge patchwork beanbag

with his child.

His sofa that seems to be made out of concrete blocks.

I think what's great about Bjarke

is while he embraced the the form that he was given

in the boat, he managed to take it

to kind of a luxurious level in his own way, you know?

And the interior design is really fantastic

and the boat feels very futuristic, but also refined.

But I think the larger interesting concept

for someone like Bjarke is that decision

to really live immersed, as it were in nature.

[gentle upbeat music]

Carl Maston was a slightly lesser known modernist

in California who hung out with Latner and Neutra,

the sort of grandees of California architecture.

Maston actually lived in this house at one point

with his wife.

It just has a great history

and a great kind of heritage and lineage.

And in that way, it's a lot like Dakota herself.

Dakota's very irreverent.

She's competent. She's funny.

She's witty. She's unfiltered.

While she's so glamorous,

she also has a down to earth quality,

which I think is because of her humor,

and the house really reflects that.

It's a spacious house, but it's not a huge house,

which I think is really charming and lovely.

And it's a great example of Pierce & Ward's work.

It's very bohemian.

There's a lot of wood, a lot of antiques,

vintage pieces, vintage art.

Everything has a warm cozy vibe to it.

Nothing is intimidating. Nothing is pretentious.

You could really curl up on her sofa

and really live in this house.

There's so many wonderful things in this office,

such as the photograph of Hunter S. Thompson,

who was a friend of her father's

And I love it so much,

even with his boobies.

[Amy Astley] Photographs of her grandmother, Tippi Hedren,

the mother of her famous mother, Melanie Griffith.

Books that were signed to Dakota by Patty Smith.

And also just funny moments like uncool books

that she grabbed inside of hid from our cameras.

Just put them down here, go to a cooler pile.

[Amy Astley] I loved Dakota's Open Door.

Her unfiltered bamboo war with her neighbors.

My neighbors on that side are in a war with me

about how high the bamboo in the driveway is growing,

which is insane, because why would I want people

to be able to see in my house?

I can't believe that I'm even letting you guys in my house,

so they can just shove it.

Her tour of her pool and her garden, very charming.

Her many F bombs and of course the limes.

[gentle music]

AD, how are you? I'm Mrs. Dean.

Mr. Dean, right here.

and we wanna invite you into our home. Come.

People talk about not letting your clothes wear you,

but you should wear your clothes,

and it's true for the house too.

Like this is a lot of house

and some people just wouldn't be up to it.

But Alicia and Swizz are superstars.

You know, their personas are huge

and they're very comfortable in their house.

And they wear it well, it does not wear them.

It's a brutalist house in La Jolla, California.

It was designed by Wallace E. Cunningham.

Many people say it is the Tony Stark house

or the model for the Tony Stark house.

So, it certainly has super hero qualities.

One thing I really admire about the execution in this house

is how the AD100 designer Kelly Behun

dealt with a really vast space.

It has a lot of industrial surfaces, concrete surfaces

that could be interpreted as cold,

and she made it really, really warm.

She used rugs. She used texture.

She used velvets in upholstery.

She used a lot of wood, collectible pieces.

The Scarpa chairs in the dining room are amazing.

There's a real warmth to the interiors of this house

for a family with children to live in.

They're playing music there.

She has a piano that she was given when she was 16 years old

when she was first signed to Columbia Records.

And it's a place where they can display

their incredible world-class art collection,

including the biggest private collection

of Gordon Park's photography.

We see that they're really living their lives in this house.

It's not just a set piece.

I love this quote from from Swizz where he says,

90% of the art in this house is from friends

and you know, we partied with them.

We've broken bread.

They're not just like a commodity that's being collected,

but it's a real relationship being formed.

I love the whole video for the vibe between the two of them,

Alicia and Swizz.

It's super easy and fond, affectionate.

They're extremely respectful of each other.

It really shows you why the home is important

as a nest for these people.

[gentle music]

This is the Brooklyn home of two artists, Brian Donnelly,

better known as KAWS, and his wife Julia Chiang.

I don't go to every house that we photograph.

Sometimes, it's not practical.

It's too far flung, too far away.

But this one I did get to visit prior to photographing it,

and I will say it rocked my world.

Brian Donnelly, aka KAWS,

is a real rock star of the art world,

To see how he collects and curates

and how his mind works,

and that glimpse into his mind, his visual sense,

what intrigues him is utterly fascinating.

The George Condos. He has Alex Katz.

The H.C. Westermann robots in the entrance.

Campana Brothers furniture.

The gallery hung wall full of art.

The Wendell Castle furniture, the Gaetano Pesce.

The energy in KAWS' world is really good.

He and Julia are an incredible creative couple.

They have these cute, young, energetic kids

running around, living with all this art

and running through this incredible space.

I mean, this courtyard in Brooklyn is outrageous.

They're family people.

And I'm always drawn to how artists live in their home,

because I think that they see the world so differently

from how the rest of us normal folks see it.

It's refreshing for him to come home

and be around other people's work.

I think AD's evolved

in the sense that I wanted it to feel buzzy and relevant,

who are the people of interest and why

and can we show a different facet of them.

The house is so, so, so revealing of that person,

of who they are and adds another layer of dimension

to understanding them.

I hope it doesn't feel cold.

I hope it feels not so perfect.

The home ultimately is the place to eat.

It's a place to rest.

It's a place to watch television,

to be with your family, with your friends.

If we're lucky enough to have a home,

that's what it's all about.

As you find what your taste is, and your style,

and what speaks to you,

I think that you land on something timeless.

You can tweak it.

You can update a little bit as you would a wardrobe,

but you don't need to throw the whole thing out.

If you're lucky enough to have grandparents,

like check out their house.

You might see it right there, you know?

People who just really know who they are

and everything just clicks and it works.

I hope this gave you a deeper understanding

of why these houses are so special to me

and why we chose to include them in AD,

and in our new book AD at Home.

I hope you got a lot of inspiration

from the stories in the houses, as I certainly do.

[gentle music]