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Forget about “style or pedigree”, because for Kirsten Dunst it was all about that “sweet, lovely call of home” when it came to crafting her charming Los Angeles ranch house.
That’s how the actress’s friend and interior designer Jane Hallworth describes it, anyway.
The pair of them worked together to create something that is “a little bit country, a little bit rock-and-roll, and a whole lot of charm,” writes Architectural Digest for Dunst’s first proper home in LA’s San Fernando Valley.
It is like a kind of reimagined Scandinavian lake house meets country ranch tucked away in the Hollywood Hills:
Luckily, Dunst had a reasonably established relationship with Hallworth, who had just establish herself as a player in the world of interiors and was thus able to teach Dunst all about furniture and design:
“Kirsten has worked with some of the world’s best costume and set designers, so she has an amazing eye. She gets inspired by beautiful things. She can see the poetry in them. For her, it’s not about style or pedigree per se, but that sweet, lovely call of home,” Hallworth says.
“For that first house, I didn’t lead her to trivial pieces. We didn’t buy much, but what we did buy was the best.
Suffice to say, all the things that have made their way into Dunst’s 1930s ranch house are exquisite:
In the main bedroom, a Regency gilt-wood mirror surmounts an 18th-century Danish secretary. A Baguès ship-form chandelier hangs from the ceiling, and the side chair is by Ico Parisi.
Living there with her fiancé, fellow actor Jesse Plemons, and their two sons, three-year-old Ennis and baby James, everything is also charmingly uncomplicated:
Besides the precious items from Dunst’s collecting that started almost two decades before moving in, like the steel Gio Ponti chairs and a crystal chandelier, there are other objects that are close to her heart:
“That was a Spider-Man purchase,” Dunst says, gesturing toward a shapely, seductive Frits Henningsen wingback chair.
“The Elizabeth Peyton portrait of Marie Antoinette was, predictably, from my Marie Antoinette days,” she continues, referring to her star turn in director Sofia Coppola’s toothsome 2006 biopic.
Many of the more eccentric heirlooms and curiosities in the home are connected to Dunst’s family.
The antique ship models that adorn the living and dining rooms, for example, were fabricated by her grandfather, while an antique mourning wreath of white feathers in the family room was crafted by Dunst’s great-aunt on her Minnesota farm.
Here’s the aforementioned bar stool, with a Steinway & Sons piano in the background:
As for Plemons’, every room has a bit of his presence, too:
Every room in the house contains bits of Texiana, or Texidermy, or whatever one calls objects redolent of the Lone Star State, where Plemons was born.
An abundance of guitars, two pianos—a Steinway and a beloved Wurlitzer—and an antique parlor organ said to have belonged to the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson point to the actor’s passion for music.
Hallworth notes how they had to shake up a dash of Jesse’s cowboy aesthetic mixed in with Kirsten’s more glamorous side to make the perfect homey cocktail:
“I like the combination of girly and masculine. I like things that have age and patina—really anything that sparks an emotional connection,” Dunst says of her decorative predilections.
But ultimately, their home is the gathering spot where everyone comes to eat, drink, swim, and make music, so as Dunst says, “as much as we value pretty, nothing is too precious”.
Check out the full tour in this video:
[source:architecturaldigest]
