00:00 [door slams]
00:01 - Hi, AD.
00:02 I'm Ashley Benson and welcome to my home.
00:05 - Come on in.
00:07 [upbeat music]
00:09 - So this is the casual living room,
00:25 but it's really my dog's main bedroom, house, kitchen.
00:30 I've always wanted to live in a house
00:33 that felt like I was on permanent vacation.
00:35 When I'm outside, I just feel like I'm in Italy or Barcelona,
00:38 like anywhere that kind of puts me away
00:40 from being in LA, and this house really did that for me.
00:44 I just had such a vision.
00:46 I love interior design.
00:47 I worked with Nicole Gordon,
00:49 who's also one of my best friends.
00:50 It was very easy, and John Farace was amazing.
00:53 So one fun fact that I loved
00:55 right when I saw the house originally,
00:57 Arthur Kelly, who did the Playboy Mansion,
00:59 also built this house in 1930,
01:02 and I thought that was just a very cool piece of history,
01:05 and I think I was the third owner of this house,
01:08 which is very rare.
01:10 It just felt very special and timeless.
01:12 [upbeat music]
01:15 A kitchen is everything to me.
01:20 Nancy Meyers is one of my favorite directors ever.
01:24 If you know her movies, which I'm sure you do,
01:27 she has the best kitchens.
01:28 Like, her interiors are amazing.
01:30 I wanted my house to feel very Nancy Meyers-esque,
01:34 and so here we are.
01:37 I wanted a very big island.
01:38 I love to entertain.
01:39 A lot of my free time that I have on the weekends,
01:42 I have all of my friends come over.
01:43 They'll come over with what dish they're gonna make,
01:46 and we just spend a lot of time in here.
01:48 This is probably the most used room of my house.
01:51 The one thing I wanted, I was like,
01:52 I need to somehow figure out how I can make this stove
01:57 in my kitchen, and also one of these,
02:01 'cause it looks like I know how to cook,
02:02 and I'm a professional chef.
02:03 I have a bunch of these pans,
02:05 and no, I've never used them, and I never will.
02:08 I've collected a bunch of pots and pans and kettles
02:11 and stuff from Paris, London, Geneva, Canada,
02:14 kind of all over.
02:16 I was gonna put a big light above the island,
02:20 but this is far more interesting.
02:22 I just think it looks very pretty.
02:24 I make all of my friends coffee every morning
02:27 if they're over.
02:28 If not, I'll make myself coffee,
02:30 and believe it or not, I actually do keep pastries in here
02:34 all the time just because I feel like it looks pretty,
02:37 and it just makes me in a really great mood.
02:40 This is not just for show.
02:41 This is for show, but I really always do have
02:44 little donuts or bread, croissants, all the things
02:49 just because I wanna look like I know
02:51 what I'm doing in here.
02:52 [upbeat jazz music]
02:55 This is my dining room.
02:58 Before, it was all white, and it just had a piano in here.
03:03 I kind of like the idea of having a dining room
03:06 away from my kitchen, and I made these doors
03:11 be able to open to the backyard and the grass
03:14 so my dogs can go out.
03:16 We can get fresh air.
03:17 I have a fireplace here, which I redid into gold,
03:20 a gold fireplace, which I loved,
03:23 and having a black dining room I thought was very cool.
03:27 It felt very Parisian to me in a sense,
03:30 but yeah, in the winter, I literally have this fire going
03:35 at all times.
03:36 My friends come over.
03:37 We play games, and we just eat and sit here for hours.
03:42 I have music put on in here, and it's just a really nice
03:45 room to kind of relax in.
03:47 [upbeat jazz music]
03:50 So this is my formal living room.
03:53 I wanted to have a space that felt very adult
03:57 and just classy, elegant, and somewhere for people
04:02 to just be able to sit down, talk,
04:05 for me to read a book, enjoy the fire,
04:07 have coffee, tea, a glass of wine, whatever that may be.
04:11 Every time I went into people's houses,
04:13 and I was like, "You don't have a TV?
04:14 That's so crazy," but it just feels so much more mature.
04:19 I just liked a grand room without anything like that,
04:23 but I also wanted to have kind of a home theater room.
04:28 Being able to watch films and then having this fire,
04:31 it's just amazing.
04:33 [upbeat jazz music]
04:37 [upbeat music]
04:39 So right now we're in my backyard,
04:43 which I actually use as my front yard, my front entrance.
04:48 We have my pool here.
04:51 We have these beautiful blue tiles.
04:53 The elevated hot tub was really important for me,
04:56 and the water flows down when you're in it.
04:58 And yeah, it's just very cozy, and every time I'm out here,
05:01 I just feel like I'm on vacation.
05:03 I feel like I'm in Cabo, and then also Italy
05:06 with all the flowers and stuff.
05:08 But yeah, it's very relaxing out here.
05:09 This is Mason.
05:11 Mason is Nicole Gordon's dog who also did my house.
05:15 Love you, Nicole.
05:16 But Mason comes over all the time.
05:17 He's the one creature that goes in my pool
05:20 more than I do or my friends.
05:22 If he comes into my house, he goes right through the gate,
05:24 jumps in the pool, and he's there for hours.
05:26 Hey, this is what we do on weekends.
05:28 Ready?
05:29 Yeah, go.
05:30 He also uses steps, too.
05:32 Good boy, Macy.
05:35 Good boy, Macy.
05:37 [upbeat music]
05:40 I feel like because I travel so much,
05:45 and I'm constantly living in hotels,
05:49 I wanted my bedroom to feel like that.
05:53 I love small spaces and to feel very cozy.
05:56 And I got inspired by one hotel in Amsterdam
06:00 that had weird cages for the bathrooms.
06:03 And so I thought of the idea of why not make my bathrooms
06:06 in weird caged rooms?
06:08 So here we are.
06:09 This copper tub was very important to me.
06:11 I wanted something that was different, hence this.
06:16 I'm a very big bath person.
06:18 The first thing I do when I wake up is take a bath,
06:21 regardless of if I have time or not.
06:24 I go in here, I put a little TV in here.
06:27 This was an amazing piece.
06:30 It's also a steam room, which I really wanted.
06:35 If I'm ever feeling sick or worn down or just tired,
06:38 I'll sit in here for another hour or two.
06:40 And then if you go over on this side,
06:43 this just feels very open, very girly.
06:46 These sconces actually are original to the house,
06:50 and I think a lot of the sconces in my bedroom are as well.
06:53 But to kind of tie that in with my bathroom,
06:55 I picked this mirror that's kind of covering up
06:59 a little window there.
07:00 [upbeat music]
07:02 This is where I sleep.
07:07 I was obsessed with blush and like a mustardy yellow
07:12 and a navy situation.
07:13 I didn't know how we would make it work, but we did.
07:17 These floating little nightstands are amazing and so handy.
07:21 And it just looks more clean.
07:22 I love having a clean kind of aesthetic.
07:24 I don't like anything busy.
07:27 So it just worked very well having these sconces right here,
07:30 these little lamps.
07:31 I think it's such a nice touch.
07:33 But yeah, just very feminine and tidy
07:35 and nothing too crazy busy.
07:37 And it just, again, feels like a really nice hotel room.
07:40 I also have an original fireplace,
07:43 which I love putting on the fire at night.
07:46 And I still do, even in the summer, I'll have it blasting.
07:49 I go to bed, it makes me just fall asleep very easily.
07:52 And then why not have a bar in your bedroom?
07:56 So again, it just felt like I was away somewhere in a hotel.
08:01 And I know that sounds kind of crazy, but you know, why not?
08:06 Also, it's mainly just for my candy.
08:11 [upbeat music]
08:14 I wanted my closet to kind of flow with my bathroom.
08:23 So this originally, all of this was a guest room
08:27 and there wasn't a lot of closet space in the house.
08:31 So I got to kind of build my dream closet
08:34 and I felt like I was in a department store,
08:39 but still my house.
08:41 This is like one of my favorite things ever.
08:43 I always dreamed of having a closet
08:45 with little lights in it
08:46 and kind of being able to see everything.
08:48 This is actually a photo that Keegan Allen took
08:51 who played Toby on "Pretty Little Liars."
08:53 He framed this for me.
08:56 That's in Mulholland.
08:56 I think we were, I think I was like 24
08:59 and I was very into photography at the time.
09:01 And I just thought it looked very cute in this closet.
09:05 So thanks, Keegan.
09:06 I had the laundry room built in this little secret door.
09:11 This laundry room is so much fun.
09:17 First of all, this wallpaper.
09:19 I wanted to do the laundry room in a very weird print.
09:22 And for some reason,
09:23 I was really into aliens at the time and space.
09:27 So I was like, what can I find that has that sort of element
09:31 and why not put it in the laundry room?
09:34 My friend, Christina is an amazing organizer
09:36 and she did my laundry room for me.
09:39 So it just also looks like a store.
09:41 It's just a very fun room for me to be in
09:44 and a lot of space to do my laundry,
09:46 steam clothes, fold clothes, all the things.
09:49 I love doing laundry.
09:50 So I just wanted to make this space
09:52 kind of a fun room for me to be in.
09:54 This is going into one of my guest bedrooms
09:58 and this entire room is all original.
10:02 It kind of reminded me of Chateau Marmont,
10:04 which I did spend a lot of time in, in my early 20s.
10:07 I lived there for a bit.
10:09 So this was kind of paying homage to that.
10:12 And I just thought it was so beautiful
10:14 and I was happy to not have to redo another room
10:16 and to be able to leave some of the original pieces here.
10:19 [upbeat music]
10:22 This is one of my favorite guest rooms.
10:27 It feels like Beauty and the Beast to me.
10:30 I love libraries and we stained all this wood
10:35 to be a bit darker.
10:36 And I just wanted to fill it with different memories.
10:39 A lot of my family pictures are here,
10:43 different projects I've worked on,
10:45 a lot of memorabilia.
10:46 I love collecting records.
10:49 So I have a lot of my records here on these shelves.
10:52 And I think also it's just so peaceful.
10:54 The sunset from this room is incredible.
10:58 [upbeat music]
11:01 We're on our way to the speakeasy, but before that,
11:10 this was actually the original furnace in the house.
11:13 We sealed it shut, painted it gold.
11:16 I thought it was a really cool piece to leave here.
11:21 And if you walk this way,
11:22 I'll just see a much younger me right there
11:27 for spring breakers.
11:28 This is my speakeasy.
11:31 I'll take you up this way to the bar.
11:34 I spend a lot of time in here.
11:39 Believe it or not, I do a lot of my self tapes
11:41 for auditions in this room.
11:43 So it's not only a bar, but also a workspace.
11:47 I got inspired by Hotel Coste.
11:49 It's one of my favorite hotels in Paris.
11:51 They have a lot of black marble, black walls,
11:55 deep red accent walls.
11:57 All of their rooms in the hotel are red velvet.
12:01 And I'm just obsessed with that hotel.
12:04 The wallpaper on the ceiling, it looks like flowers.
12:08 But if you look close enough,
12:09 you might see something a little different.
12:12 We don't have to go into details, but you know.
12:14 And then also this mirrored ceiling,
12:17 I thought was very fun.
12:18 Just to kind of play off of the mirrored background
12:22 of the bar.
12:23 It's normally all red lights.
12:25 I change all these sconces to red light.
12:28 I put music on and I'll be down here for hours
12:31 with my friends or just alone.
12:32 And I find it actually a very creative space for me.
12:35 During COVID, I mastered an espresso martini.
12:40 So that's one of my faves.
12:42 Try to do better at making good cocktails.
12:46 I just pour things in and hopefully it tastes good.
12:49 [upbeat music]
13:04 Thanks for coming over and hanging out with me.
13:06 I hope you enjoyed the house,
13:08 but now I want some alone time.
13:09 So get out.
13:11 Bye.
13:12 [upbeat music]
13:16 - Bye!
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