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Architectural Digest Editor-in-Chief Amy Astley takes viewers inside some of her favorite homes featured during her tenure at AD, revealing what makes each space truly exceptional. From the soulful creativity of Lenny Kravitz’s Brazilian farm to the personal artistry behind Dakota Johnson’s California home, Amy shares how these houses reflect the unique personalities of their owners. Through her expert eye, discover what defines great design and how AD continues to celebrate the most inspiring homes around the world.
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00:00My pet peeve is definitely houses without books. Unfortunately, I see it. I'm like,
00:04where are the books? You've got to have books. Hi, I'm Amy Astley. I'm going to take you through
00:09some of the most exciting and impactful homes that we have published during my tenure at AD.
00:15And they're all houses that are included in our new book, AD at Home.
00:24People always ask me, how do we choose the houses that are in AD? And the answer is that I look for
00:29things that are visually original. They're very personal. To me, the people with the best style,
00:35whether it's in the way they dress, the way they decorate, the way they cook, the way they live
00:40their life, it's personal. They know who they are. They know how they want it to be, to taste,
00:45feel, to look, how they want to feel in their clothes, in their home. And so I don't subscribe
00:50to good taste, bad taste, good design, bad design. I've definitely run houses in AD that people have
00:55said, I don't like that house. And I'm like, great. Now we're talking about something.
01:04When I started at AD, I only had a few weeks to pull together my first issue. And so I was
01:10scrambling very fast to put together an issue that normally I would spend six months working on.
01:16And so I reached out and Mark said, yes. We put his dog Neville on the cover with his Instagram
01:22handle. That was me announcing that it was a new day at AD and that printers thought it was a mistake
01:27and they sent it back to ask us about it. And I think he set the standard very, very high. You know,
01:34like in my mind, I'm like, can it be as exciting as Mark's house? It's very classic and quiet and old
01:42school chic. Everything sort of whispers rather than shouts. And then the contemporary art is like
01:47bam. It is statement making. In his living room, that incredible Paul McCarthy sculpture, that's like
01:54this wild, wild Disneyland kind of sculpture in this very refined, very luxurious setting.
02:01Mark is known for his incredible flights of fantasy on the runway. And then the house is very tailored.
02:08It's very chic. It's very elegant. And that's why it's so amazing to go into people's houses.
02:12It reveals so much about them. So I think as a first statement for me at AD, it shows, you know,
02:20what you think you know about someone, you're totally wrong because you have some preconceived
02:24notions about who he is. And then you see the house and you realize, I don't know Mark at all.
02:29I thought that was sort of very stealth and just added to the mystery of his genius. I love that.
02:38Welcome to my Fazenda.
02:44Fazenda means farm. I learned that from Lenny's open door, as did I think millions of other people
02:48who watched it. This is an 18th century coffee compound that he's renovated for his life now.
02:55It's a working farm. In his incredible open door, he talks about the farm to table lifestyle there.
03:01And I would have to say that this is one of the most extraordinary homes we've ever shown in AD.
03:06He's an AD100 designer, which I find a lot of people don't know about him. But everything that
03:11you're looking at in this home has been touched by his own hands. He designed this house. It's full
03:17of love. It's very organic. It's full of black and white photos of his family. He's a real connoisseur
03:22of design. When we filmed, he had his band members there. They come for long periods of time.
03:27And you see how he interacts with the people who work on this huge property, taking care of the
03:32animals and the farmland and of him and his guests. And it's just a very warm place full of love for
03:38the people around him. So he has like a vintage Vladimir Kagan bed. It's a bit aged in weather,
03:44but that makes it better. He has a piano that belonged to Ingrid Bergman. He has a velvet chair
03:50that belonged to Andy Warhol. He cares about the pieces in his home. He knows where they came from.
03:55He's obviously collecting things with an interesting backstory. Being in touch with nature in this way
04:01has changed his life. He got in touch with his inner cowboy. I think that speaks to the power of
04:06place to transform a life. Obviously, Lenny's a really lucky and fortunate person and can live in
04:13ways that the rest of us can't. But what's so touching is he's sharing it with so many other people
04:18and he's very generous about it. And I think that is special.
04:27This building has a fascinating history. It was a handball court in about 1869.
04:33And then around 1950, it was transformed into a brick factory. And then in the 70s,
04:40the architect John Mockridge turned it into a private residence. Now, Troye Sivan, international
04:46pop star, owns it. And he sees himself as, you know, sort of the latest steward in the most recent
04:52chapter of this incredible building. Troye is really unique. I mean, you don't see that many
04:58super young people who are geeking out on design and architecture and care so much about their
05:03environment. But Troye definitely does. And I think that Troye's had an amazing kind of influence
05:09on young people. The open door was widely watched. Quite often, they'll tell me, it inspired them to
05:14think more about their own personal space. And Troye's absolutely obsessed with lighting.
05:19I think the goal was to have like a soup of light. You know what I mean? I didn't want like
05:23hard overhead lighting because no one looks good in that. Just finding soft light just kind of gently
05:29fills the room. What I love about how David Flack and Troye approached the house is they didn't try to
05:34like clean it up or tidy it up. They embraced all the different materiality in the house. So it has
05:39the industrial vibe. It has cork on the ceiling. It has steel. It has the beautiful old courtyard.
05:45And they embraced every bit of its place and of its history. And I think it just has a lot of soul.
05:51But it's up to date. It's modern. It's incredible how they managed to weave the old and the new together.
05:57He also made an outdoor bathroom in the courtyard. He calls it the outdoor toilet situation.
06:02There used to be a toilet in the kitchen. He said he always found the toilet in the kitchen
06:07pretty gross. No argument from me. And he moved the whole thing out into the courtyard where you
06:14go into this insane bathroom that has the music system and the incredible marble. Troye said something
06:20that I thought was really funny and charming about, you know, when you go in an amazing hotel or an
06:24amazing restaurant and people say, oh, have you been to the bathroom? Have you seen the bathroom?
06:29He wanted that in his courtyard bathroom. And he definitely got it.
06:33Obsessed. I think it's so dramatic and extra. And I love it.
06:42Hello, AD. I'm Sienna Miller. Welcome to my cottage.
06:47This is a 16th century thatched roof cottage that belongs to the gorgeous, fabulous, talented Sienna Miller.
06:54It's just like a dream. She calls this cottage thatched. So it's incredibly cute and very British.
07:01It is just so storybook. Thatched is funny. It's like the biggest tiny house you've ever seen.
07:09But it's an incredibly creative house that she did with her friend Gabby Delal, who's a film director.
07:13It's designed, but it's not over-designed. It's cozy. It's warm. It's definitely elevated and stylish,
07:20but not forbiddingly so. To me, this is a house that's about the life being lived in it. And those
07:25are the best houses. She talks about the crowds of people in the house. It was obviously important
07:30to her that a lot of guests can sleep over in their guest cottages. And this is what we call the
07:34outhouse, where I send my friends who are madly in love because it's very romantic. The part of her
07:39house that I might love the most is her own bedroom. I think the way she and Gabby designed the bedroom
07:45with the beautiful Maison C wallpaper and the bath that's open to the bedroom,
07:50and then the doors at the foot of the bed that open out into the garden is just like a heavenly
07:55romantic dream.
08:06Suleika and John met. It's so adorable. They met at band camp as teenagers. They have a long romance,
08:13a real love story, and an amazing couple. Sadly, Suleika has been battling leukemia and she was in
08:20remission for 10 years. But at the point they were renovating this house, it came back. Rather than put
08:25their project on pause, they doubled down on their renovation and insisted, this is going to be our
08:32house. This is going to be where we live. This will happen. We will have a life here. And so she
08:37referred to it as an act of defiance. I felt so moved to be allowed into their private space.
08:44They got married in the house, in the living room, and they decided to make that commitment to one
08:50another while she was ill, obviously, and while they were renovating their house. And I think that's
08:55a magic thing about houses. It can really let you into the story of people. And with these two,
09:00it certainly resonates. There's the creativity flows out of John and he just wants to be able
09:05to sit down and play and sing and compose. That's what a home should be about, right?
09:16They live with her artworks. She's especially painted during her illness in the hospital. I think
09:21to sort of make sense of it and to express herself. And all these personal things are around them. They
09:27talk a lot about things from Tunisia, things that are from New Orleans, where he's from,
09:32and melding their two worlds together. It's a place that reflects their spirit. I also love their
09:38pink kitchen. I think it's such a pretty color and I don't get many pink kitchens, but theirs is really
09:43great and I should see more pink kitchens. Celica really loves secondhand. She loves thrifting. I mean,
09:49she's good at it. She has this desk that was actually not thrifted that John gave to her as a gift,
09:54and it was Joan Didion's desk. And she talks about the spirit that comes through that desk to her.
09:59But she also makes the point that even if it was not Joan Didion's desk, she still would have been
10:03drawn to this piece in a thrift store because the design of it speaks to her. And that's why this
10:08house has so much soul and so much character.
10:11Björk is a really, really innovative thinker. If he has to make a waste processing plant in Copenhagen,
10:23he'll put a ski slope on the top or do the Lego Museum and it's all made out of Legos. As an
10:29architect, I'm fascinated by his work and I never would have imagined that he would choose to live
10:34in a decommissioned ferry that really functions as a lab for him. He's really fascinated by the
10:41idea of floating homes and how they are sustainable in our climate. He mentioned to AD that a houseboat
10:49is the most resilient form of architecture and as sea levels rise, the home will move with the sea.
10:55This is all a part of Björk's genius and everything about it is just sort of a delight and a joy to look at.
11:03I love the picture of him on the huge patchwork beanbag with his child, his sofa that seems to
11:09be made out of concrete blocks. I think what's great about Björk is while he embraced the form
11:15that he was given in the boat, he managed to take it to kind of a luxurious level in his own way,
11:21you know, and the interior design is really fantastic and the boat feels very futuristic but also refined.
11:28But I think the larger interesting concept for someone like Björk is that decision to really live
11:34immersed as it were in nature.
11:42Carl Mastin was a slightly lesser known modernist in California who hung out with Lautner and Neutra,
11:49the sort of grandees of California architecture. Mastin actually lived in this house at one point with his
11:56wife. It just has a great history and a great kind of heritage and lineage and in that way it's a lot
12:03like Dakota herself. Dakota's very irreverent. She's confident, she's funny, she's witty, she's unfiltered.
12:10While she's so glamorous she also has a down-to-earth quality which I think is because of her humor
12:16and the house really reflects that. It's a spacious house but it's not a huge house which I think is
12:22really charming and lovely. And it's a great example of Pearson Ward's work. It's very bohemian,
12:28there's a lot of wood, a lot of antiques, vintage pieces, vintage art. Everything has a warm cozy
12:37vibe to it. Nothing is intimidating, nothing is pretentious. You could really curl up on her sofa
12:43and really live in this house. There's so many wonderful things in this office such as the photograph
12:49of Hunter S. Thompson who was a friend of her father's. And I love it so much. Even with his
12:56boobies. Photographs of her grandmother Tippi Hedren, the mother of her famous mother Melanie Griffith,
13:02books that were signed to Dakota by Patti Smith and also just funny moments like uncool books that she
13:10grabbed inside of hid from our cameras. Just put them down here. Go to a cooler pile. I loved
13:15Dakota's open door. Her unfiltered bamboo war with her neighbors. My neighbors on that side are in a war
13:24with me about how high the bamboo in the driveway is growing which is insane because why would I want
13:32people to be able to see in my house? I can't believe that I'm even letting you guys in my house. So they
13:37can just shove it. Her tour of her pool and her garden, very charming. Her many f-bombs and of course the limes.
13:51Hey Dee, how are you? I'm Mrs. Dean. Mr. Dean right here. And we want to invite you into our home. Come. People talk
13:58about not letting your clothes wear you but you should wear your clothes and it's true for the house too.
14:04Like this is a lot of house and some people just wouldn't be up to it. But Alicia and Swizz are
14:10superstars. You know their personas are huge and they're very comfortable in their house and they
14:16wear it well. It does not wear them. It's a brutalist house in La Jolla, California. It was designed by
14:22Wallace E. Cunningham. Many people say it is the Tony Stark house or the model for the Tony Stark house. So it
14:29certainly has super hero qualities. One thing I really admire about the execution in this house
14:36is how the AD100 designer Kelly Bayon dealt with a really vast space. It has a lot of industrial
14:42surfaces, concrete surfaces that could be interpreted as cold and she made it really, really warm.
14:48She used rugs. She used texture. She used velvets and upholstery. She used a lot of wood,
14:52collectible pieces. The scarpa chairs in the dining room are amazing. There's a real warmth to the
14:58interiors of this house for a family with children to live in. They're playing music there. She has
15:03a piano that she was given when she was 16 years old when she was first signed to Columbia Records.
15:08And it's a place where they can display their incredible world-class art collection, including
15:14the biggest private collection of Gordon Parks photography. You see that they're really living
15:18their lives in this house. It's not just a set piece. I love this quote from from Swizz where he says
15:2590% of the art in this house is from friends and, you know, we've partied with them. We've broken bread.
15:30They're not just like a commodity that's being collected, but it's a real relationship being
15:34formed. I love the whole video for the vibe between the two of them, Alicia and Swizz. It's super easy,
15:40fond, affectionate. They're extremely respectful of each other. It really shows you why the home is
15:45important as a nest for these people. This is the Brooklyn home of two artists, Brian Donnelly,
15:55better known as Cause, and his wife, Julia Chang. I don't go to every house that we photograph.
16:01Sometimes it's not practical. It's too far flung, too far away. But this one I did get to visit prior to
16:07you photographing it. And I will say it rocked my world. Brian Donnelly, AKA Cause, is a real rock star
16:16of the art world to see how he collects and curates and how his mind works. And that glimpse into his
16:22mind, his visual sense, what intrigues him is utterly fascinating. The George Condos, he has Alex Katz,
16:31the H.C. Westerman robots in the entrance, Campana Brothers furniture, the gallery-hung wall full of
16:37art, the Wendell Castle furniture, the Gitano Pesce. The energy and Cause's world is really good. He and
16:44Julie are an incredible creative couple. They have these cute, young, energetic kids running around
16:49living with all this art and running through this incredible space. I mean, this courtyard in Brooklyn is
16:54outrageous. They're family people. And I'm always drawn to how artists live in their home because
17:00I think that they see the world so differently from how the rest of us normal folks see it.
17:04It's refreshing for him to come home and be around other people's work.
17:10I think AD's evolved in the sense that I wanted it to feel buzzy and relevant. Who are the people of
17:15interest and why? And can we show a different facet of them? The house is so, so, so revealing of that
17:22person, of who they are, and adds another layer of dimension to understanding them. I hope it doesn't
17:27feel cold. I hope it feels, um, not so perfect. The home ultimately is a place to eat. It's a place
17:33to rest. It's a place to watch television, to be with your family, with your friends. If we're lucky
17:38enough to have a home, that's what it's all about. As you find what your taste is and your style and what
17:44speaks to you, I think that you land on something timeless. You can tweak it. You can update a little bit
17:51as you would a wardrobe, but you don't need to throw the whole thing out. If you're lucky enough to have
17:55grandparents, like check out their house. You might see it right there. You know, people who just
18:00really know who they are and everything just clicks and it works. I hope this gave you a deeper
18:05understanding of why these houses are so special to me and why we chose to include them in AD and
18:10in our new book, AD at Home. I hope you got a lot of inspiration from the stories and the houses,
18:15as I certainly do.
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