CELEBRITY DESIGNS
Cher has maintained her passion for designing homes alongside her entertainment career. She sold her Gothic Revivalist Malibu mansion at auction in 2005, followed by a six-bedroom pod-style home of her own design with Moroccan and Balinese influences at Four Seasons Resort Hualālai, Hawaii, in 2010 (above). Its central pod includes a great room, a dining room and a master bedroom suite, all of which enjoy island views and access to the spacious covered lanai, adjacent infinity edge pool and spa.
Opened in Florida’s Vero Beach in 2008, Costa d’este Beach Resort & Spa (left) is styled by its owner, singer Gloria Estefan, who selected warm, amber lighting for many spaces and porthole motifs to give it the feel of a luxury yacht.
The members of Pearl Jam helped design their namesake suite at The Edgewater Hotel in Seattle, the band’s home city. The skull painting over the fireplace, equipment case, Moroccan rug and electrical guitar were pulled from their recording studio.
Thai-american musician and actor Krissada Sukosol Clapp designed the 39-room The Siam (above) in Bangkok, in collaboration with celebrated American designer Bill Bensley. In keeping with its royal Dusit district setting, the hotel resembles a Thai temple, with rooms that feature decorative elements with an eye on mise en scène. In The Siam’s screening room, for instance, there are hundreds of retro Siamese theatre tickets, from The Sound of Music to Hitchcock’s Psycho, while black-and-white photos of the nation’s boxing heroes as well as their belts and ceremonial gear adorn the gym.
Film director Francis Ford
Coppola owns several resort properties, but one of the best known is the 20-room, eco-friendly Blancaneaux Lodge in Belize, which he designed as a private family retreat until it opened to the public in 1993.
In 2007, Richard Gere and his exwife Carey Lowell bought a historic 1762 building and transformed it into the eight-room Bedford Post Inn, one of New York State’s most intimate, romantic boutique stays.
Ellen Degeneres, who has told
The New York Times that she grew up wanting to become an interior designer, has redesigned and flipped several homes with partner Portia de Rossi; many are featured in her 2015 book Home.
Actor Robert De Niro has a share in hospitality chain Nobu and oversaw the decoration of his swanky 88-room Greenwich Hotel in Tribeca, where he launched the equally famous Tribeca Film Festival. Style standouts include a bar headed by celebrated chef Andrew Carmellini, the popular Locanda Verde restaurant and the Japanese-inspired Shibui Spa.
Kanye West has set his sights on more than upscale sneakers. He’s collaborated with Belgian interior designer and art dealer Axel Vervoordt on his office furniture as well as the interiors of his and Kim’s Hidden Hills home, and has said he wants to open an architecture firm called Yeezy Home, staffed by “architects and industrial designers who want to make the world better”.