When Bobby and Talani Diggs found their dream home in Malibu, California, there was no question about who would bring it to life. They turned to Maya Williams, having previously worked with the designer on an office and their primary home. “Maya is good at bringing your thoughts, your ideas into fruition,” says Bobby—better known as RZA, a founding member of Wu-Tang Clan. “She understands the look and the vision you have in your head,” he explains. For Williams, the project offered a chance to deepen this long-standing creative relationship, starting from a place of shared language and total trust.
Imbuing a 12,900-square-foot house with a sense of warmth and refuge is no small undertaking. Rather than resist the scale, Williams leaned into it—countering moments of expansion with pockets of intimacy, carving out nooks and secret spaces while framing the sweeping ocean views and soaring ceilings. “I wanted to create a home for them that balanced creativity, inspired Bobby, and gave them a good sense of energy and peace,” Williams says. That intangible energy was a key factor in the couple’s initial attraction to the house. “I tell some of my peers that there's a wind in Malibu that comes off the ocean that just blows creativity into the atmosphere,” Bobby says. “My songwriting is just smooth here.”
Williams’s longstanding rapport with the Diggs allowed the design to unfold intuitively—almost compositionally. “Every room looks very different,” she says. “Every room has its own rhythm and its own melody in a way. It’s almost like every room is its own song.” The idea proved so defining that the couple ultimately christened the home “The Temple,” a nod to the expansive grand salon that sets the tone upon arrival. There, Williams translated the Diggs’s request for a “zen” atmosphere into a musical language: bamboo-clad walls bring a grounding presence and sense of calm, while a sculptural light fixture recalling piano keys hovers above layered rugs patterned after sound waves.
Things get literal in the record room just off the grand salon. Tucked beneath the stairwell, the intimate nook was designed to house Bobby’s extensive vinyl collection while doubling as a relaxed listening lounge—an easy spillover space for evenings spent entertaining. That same musical through line carries into the adjacent elevator. “We incorporate something from Wu-Tang in every house,” Bobby says. “And so we had to figure out what to do here.” Williams responded by remixing the group’s iconic logo into a custom gold wallpaper, produced with Phillip Jeffries, transforming the elevator into a playful, high-impact vignette. Talani notes that the couple rarely uses the elevator. “Yeah—we healthy,” Bobby interjects. The solution, she says, was to turn it into a dedicated selfie room.
Another heady amalgamation of inspiration emerges in the hair salon. While the couple envisioned subtle nods to old Hollywood throughout the home, Williams found a particularly personal muse here in Talani. “She was an incredibly talented, creative, beautiful model in the ’90s when it was not very common for an African-American woman to be a successful model,” Williams shares. “She’s a fashion diva, so she definitely needed a fabulous salon.”
Black-and-white stonework—custom fabricated from two varieties of marble—references the Chanel camellia, lending the space its graphic elegance. Glamour is achieved through materiality rather than color, making it one of the few areas intentionally kept restrained and monochromatic. “Everybody who walks into that room is like, ‘Oh my God,’” Talani laughs. “They want to make an appointment.”
The ocean is as much a part of the home as any light fixture, piece of furniture, or wall covering. Williams kept the furniture intentionally low, ensuring sight lines remain uninterrupted. In the primary suite, which opens to views on three sides, a restrained palette echoes the sea’s quiet tonal range, allowing the landscape to take precedence. Outside, Williams extended the home’s material language with durable wood finishes, subtly carrying the interior’s warmth outdoors while lending the pool area a relaxed, Mediterranean inflection.
All the small touches within such a grand setting come together to create a home that feels both dramatic and deeply comfortable. Each of the six guest rooms is named for—and inspired by—a specific gemstone. There’s an intimate bar and a cozy movie theater, features that impress but could easily veer impersonal. Instead, through Williams’s nuanced use of color and texture the house reads as a welcoming refuge. “People who come here call it a speakeasy resort,” Bobby says. Talani adds: “They don’t want to leave—and they come back.”
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