Celebrity Home: Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor’s home, which she invited Architectural Digest to photograph this past spring (the shoot was under way at the time of her death), was a four-bedroom house on a secluded, wooded acre in Bel Air, California. She bought it in the early 1980s and refined it with the help of interior designer and close friend Waldo Fernandez.

In recent years nearly every room was awash in blues and lavenders, shades echoing Taylor’s famous violet eyes.

This photograph is from 1997 at her Bel Air estate. She is wearing wearing a custom-made Moroccan caftan that was a gift from publisher Malcolm Forbes.

Photographed and Produced by Firooz Zahedi
Styled by Robert Rufino
All images and information from Architectural Digest.

Celebrity Home: Iris Apfel

I've always wanted to see Iris Apfel's home. She is an amazing lady who not only designs interiors but also jewelry and clothes. Now, well into her 80's she is as active as ever. The New York City apartment she shares with her husband, Carl, is just as amazing and full of character and personality as Iris herself.

If you'd like to read the full Architectural Digest article just go here.



The living room’s bleached-oak boiserie is 18th-century French, and the door hardware is by P. E. Guerin; the screen is also French, while the chair at left, covered in an Old World Weavers tapestry fabric, is 17th-century Sicilian.

Photographer Bruce Weber is working on a documentary about her.

In the library, a Dutch painting is displayed above a Louis XVI daybed covered in fabric Apfel reproduced from a 17th-century French document.

A collection of singerie tops an 18th-century Venetian bombé chest in the living room; the back of the English chair at right is painted with chinoiserie designs.

In the entry, an 18th-century English gilt chinoiserie mirror and an Italian console.

An Italian tole chandelier above a Maison Jansen table draped in a woven paisley throw.

The first painting Apfel ever bought—a portrait of the Infanta Margarita she picked up 60 years ago at an antiques shop in Florence.

Bakelite jewelry in the paws of a hand-carved French mountain dog.

The entry contains an 18th-century French screen (left), an early-18th-century painted Genoese corner cabinet, and Louis XVI–style chairs upholstered in an Old World Weavers cut velvet. The needlepoint carpet is English.

“I was one of the first New York women to wear boots,” says Apfel, who designed the gilt-leather-and-fabric pair on the floor at right. Racks of her vintage pieces fill a spare room; she is especially fond of the metallic-check coat by Galanos.

A hallway is lined with dog paintings and 19th-century English bookcases brimming with volumes on fashion, decorative arts, and Chinese costumes and textiles.

Hope you enjoyed this tour. Let me know!

Text by Amanda Vaill
Photography by Roger Davies
Produced by Robert Rufino

All images and information from Architectural Digest.

Celebrity Home: Sheryl Crow

One of my favourite design magazines, Architectural Digest, featured Sheryl Crow's home in this month's issue.

After not seeing eye to eye with the decorator she had appointed, she decided to go solo and, little by little, guided by intuition she began to fill the rooms herself, taking an unconventional, personal approach to interior design.

Set in Hollywood, there are three homes on her 11-acre property. Sheryl lives with her two sons in the main building which ia a 1926 Spanish Colonial hacienda. Then there's a 1909 Craftsman bungalow; and a 19th-century cottage, used as guesthouses for friends, relatives, and members of her band.

Sheryl by her infinity pool. Gorgeous Hollywood views.


The entrance to the main house.


The beautiful Spanish tile in this stairway is original to the house; the vintage dressmaker’s forms come from the Venice, California, boutique Obsolete.

In the living room, a 19th-century American “boneshaker” bicycle hangs above the fireplace.

A Ginebra sectional sofa and vintage cocktail table and the sea-grass rug in the living room. Ron Pippin’s trophylike 2007 sculpture Deer with Copper Horns is displayed on a wall.

A recamier in the corner of the living room. She bought the small Fred Stonehouse paintings at a gallery in New Orleans.

Terra-cotta floors and subway tiles in the kitchen.

A cabinet stocked with small finds. (Those skulls are rather creepy!)


The library’s club chairs are from a Paris flea market.

Crow with her Yamaha baby grand.


A 1930s light fixture hangs above the antique dining room table, once used in a linen factory.


In a small music room, a Bedford desk and Kilim benches. The guitar is a 2008 reissued Gibson Les Paul.


The master bath’s 1920s pedestal sink and black tilework are original to the house. A Persian carpet covers the floor.

A masculine Spanish look for the master bedroom.


Sheryl found the 3-D picture viewer and sculpted hand at an antiques store in Hudson, New York.

Crow’s canvas pavilion serves as an outdoor living space, complete with a desk, chair, bed, and even electricity.

A tepee in the terraced garden.

A rustic staircase, designed by Crow’s groundskeeper, José Edis Aviles, leads to walking trails that traverse the property.


An arching bridge connects the three houses on the estate.


Aviles also designed and built this palapa overlooking Los Angeles.

If you'd like to read the whole article on Sheryl's home just go here.

Photography by Roger Davies

All images and information from Architectural Digest.

Celebrity Home: Sting's Backyard

Today we are visiting Sting and Trudie Styler’s farm in Tuscany, near Florence. A terrace with stunning views of the vineyards and the Chianti hills beyond. The landscape design is by Arabella Lennox-Boyd. How I wish we could see the interiors as well!


Sting and his wife bought the property in 1997.

Typical Tuscan architecture. The 16th-century villa was built as a hunting lodge for the dukes of San Clemente.


Chinese wisteria covers the 118-foot-long oak pergola.


An antique marble fountain rises out of the boxwood parterre.

Clipped boxwood frames beds of lavender, santolina, and white oleander.

An ancient cedar of Lebanon overlooks the parterre, formally known as Il Giardino dei Limoni, or garden of the lemon trees.

Sting came up with the idea for the oversize chessboard.

Lunch on a gravel terrace in the shade of an oak tree.

The pool, installed by a previous owner, overlooks the Valdarno Superiore valley.

Photography by Giancarlo Gardin

Portrait by Jaime Travezan

All images and information from Architectural Digest.

Celebrity House: Jennifer Lopez

Interior designer Michelle Workman was appointed to decorate Jennifer Lopez's home in California. Workman had nearly completed a château-inspired house for Lopez when she had a change of heart—she didn't want to be locked into a classically French look. "Jennifer wanted to go modern and streamlined but retain the sophistication and stylishness," says Workman.
And this is how it turned out.





















Have a great Sunday!
All images from Veranda.