Inside Amber Valletta’s Peaceful L.A. Sanctuary | Open Door | Architectural Digest

Today, AD is welcomed by Amber Valletta to tour her peaceful and sustainable home in Los Angeles. Alongside an illustrious modeling career, the supermodel is also a keen climate change activist, so when it came to designing her home, sustainability was key. Valletta enlisted friend and interior designer Ross Cassidy to help design a stylish yet eco-friendly space. Paint on the walls is replaced by natural clay plaster, and the exterior is clad in light stone that will last for years. Inside, Valletta upholstered the furniture she already owned with sustainable materials and went vintage or artisanal to fill in decor gaps. Full of natural, earthy tones and organic textures, Valletta created the peaceful and sustainable sanctuary she was looking for—”a place where, when you come in from the world, you can exhale.”

See more of Amber Valletta’s home here: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/step-inside-amber-vallettas-eco-friendly-la-sanctuary

Shop Amber Valletta’s home style!
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/shopping/amber-valletta-open-door
When you buy something through our retail links, we earn an affiliate commission.

ARTWORK
Photographs by Richard Avedon, The Richard Avedon Foundation
Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015), Blue Gray Green Red (for Obama), 2008, From the portfolio Artists for Obama, Edition 127 of 150, Lithograph, 12 x 14 inches Ellsworth Kelly Foundation and Gemini G.E.L. LLC
Glen Luchford – Art Partner / Trunk Archive

Want even more AD? Subscribe to the magazine and get a free tote ►► https://bit.ly/3Oh8McU
Still haven’t subscribed to Architectural Digest on YouTube? ►► http://bit.ly/2zl7s34

ABOUT ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST
The leading international design authority, Architectural Digest features articles and videos of the best in architecture, style, culture, travel, and shopping.

[door clicks open] – Hi “AD,” I’m Amber Valletta. Come on in. [lively music] This is the living room. My most favorite things in this room are these Frattini vintage chairs. They’re actually the first thing I bought for the house. These chairs set the tone for this living room and they are so comfortable.

I love these chairs. So believe it or not, everybody thinks California is always sunny and 80 degrees, but it is not. It is cold and chilly and we turn this fireplace on a lot. I love these sconces. They’re vintage Murano Glass from the ’50s. These are like, oh, I love these sconces.

This cool blobby walnut table came from Europe. We liked the fact that it was like weird shape that added an element to break up all of the, kind of, strong straight lines in the room. This sectional is really cool. It has these cool leather straps.

We’re here a lot with the dogs, hanging out. Sometimes I just sit here early morning and look out at the yard and the pool. I love it. [lively music] This is the dining room and initially, we wanted a different table. We wanted to find something vintage

But it was really hard to find something that worked in this room. We also wanted to try a round table. The chairs are vintage Wegner. These walls are super cool. They’re fluted and all the walls in the house are natural clay, so there’s no paint. It’s all clay and natural dyes

But these have a little bit of like, sand in them, so they were thicker so that they could make the fluting. We designed this house with my best friend, Ross Cassidy. He is an extremely talented interior designer. We love doing things like going to garden stores and buying little plants.

He’s come all the way to Paris when I’ve been there working and we’ve gone to the flea market and had a blast. That’s where we found a majority of our lights and furniture and general inspiration. I just think we’re a really great team. This light, it was recovered

From a Paris apartment, which I love. I’m sure this light fixture saw lots of cool parties. And more plants. More beautiful, weird little plants. [lively music] And here’s the kitchen and here’s Teddy, my fiance. – Hey! – Hi honey. The kitchen is one of our favorite rooms. Teddy’s really the better chef

Out of the two of us. – We only do French dishes here, so, [both laugh] we can do Pot-au-feu, we can do Boeuf bourguignon, we can do the all French classic. – [Amber] One of the cool things about this kitchen is that this island was made higher to match-

– My size. – Yeah. – I’m 6’5″, but I always think a little higher furniture, like island, it make the room more powerful. – [Amber] This table is from France. It’s an old farm door. – And like you can see as well, here you have the staple, which is a nice detail.

But one of two the detail is this door from the, – yes, this is important. – Open this and you close it. – No. I dunno why it’s- – It’s pretty much like you closing the store, right? [Teddy laughs] – He likes to close these. – And I like to close this,

Like this is like, give a little message. Do not touch. [both laughing] – So that’s the kitchen. Do you wanna show them your favorite room in the house? – Yes, of course. Let’s check it out. [both laughing] [lively music] – So we are down in the basement of our house

And it actually is supposed to feel like a cave or a wine cellar. And this is probably your favorite room. We’re in the gym. – It is my favorite room. This is my little area where I’m doing hair. This is from Japan. I think you should be,

Sit in it. – Oh, should I be in it? Okay. Okay. – Yeah, I think so. You completely like lay down to do your shampoo. – I don’t get this treatment very often. This is for his clients, not me. We use the gym pretty much daily.

Bella, she uses the treadmill when we’re working out so she can get some extra exercise. She also goes to the park, but she loves getting on the treadmill and doing her workout while we do our workout. That’s our basement. Let me show you the rest of the house. [lively music]

I’m letting you into my primary suite, which is my most private space, my bedroom. I love this space for a few different reasons. I love the vaulted ceilings. I love the peaceful vibe in here. I look out and all I see are trees and mountains. I love this beautiful plant and my crystals.

I just love the fact that it feels calming. I just wanted this house and the space to feel really relaxing and peaceful and comfortable. Comfortable is key. One of the beautiful things too, I think about this room is this very large silk carpet. It’s like you wanna roll around in it.

It brings so much warmth in the room. These beautiful chairs I got in France, they’re vintage from the ’50s and I just love this, it’s gorgeous. It’s handmade and it’s all ceramic and it’s incredibly heavy. Be very careful at night because you can scar yourself hitting it, which I did recently. [lively music]

Now we’re in the primary bathroom. It is very important, I think, to have two spaces. When you live with someone. If you’re lucky enough to have the room, you can have two sinks and we have two showers. The shower is huge. We can have a party in here

And we do occasionally wash the dog in here, but that’s rare. Usually she goes out. So yeah, both Teddy and I can shower at the same time if we’re in a hurry. You can do lunges, you know, stretch in the morning. It’s like it’s big.

So the light fixture above me is also really beautiful. We didn’t find this light fixture. Rob Diaz, the designer of the overall structure of the house, put this in. I love the soft, round, bubbly feel of that one. Also, it looks like tits, I mean, it looks like a woman’s body

And it mirrors the shape of the tub. The rounded, rounded bits, rounded bits, rounded bits. I absolutely love the floors, but I’m not gonna lie, they’re kind of cold. And I do need a carpet in here. Ross, I need a carpet in here. [lively music] So welcome to our closet.

Teddy and I share a closet except the big side is my side. And that little alcove over there is his. So I have a lot of amazing pieces that I’ve collected over the years. Some of them have been gifts from designers and some of them I bought vintage, ’cause I love vintage.

So this was from, gosh, I think this is only like two or three months ago, and I went with Saint Laurent and this is a Saint Laurent piece by Anthony Vaccarello. So I wore this crazy sexy body suit and this big fluffy green neon feathered coat. [lively music] This incredible Prada piece,

Skirt and top is from the mid ’90s. I wore this actually in a campaign shop by Glen Luchford. So beautiful and it’s totally an iconic campaign. I love men’s suits and I love tuxedos. I just think they’re super classic. And I have this incredible handmade bespoke Tom Ford tuxedo

That he made for me for a gift for doing his very first fashion show in New York. And here’s my name. This suit is super sexy. Love this tuxedo. [lively music] We are in our office. I spend a lot of time in here. Okay, this is another one of my favorite rooms.

I love my house. This also has fluted walls, which we wanted to carry that theme through the house. This desk table we found here in LA. It’s vintage, but what I really love about it, and I think why we just thought it was so cool and unique was the shape.

Because no one has like, you know, a place of greater importance in a shape like this. Now you do have a better view if you’re on that side looking out, but there’s no head of the table. These chairs are new and they’re super cozy. Great when you’re sitting at the computer for hours.

This light came from Paris, it’s vintage. We just thought this glass was like incredible. This was found at auction and it is, honestly, it was shocking that we found a piece that fit this room perfectly that had all the cabinet space for like the fax machine, not the fax machine.

It’s like 1990, sorry, for the printer. And then this wall. It’s one of the few places in the house that we just kind of layered artwork and photography. This was for the Versace campaign that I shot with Richard Avedon in the ’90s. Only special pieces get put up on the wall. [lively music]

Come see my, my personal favorite is my meditation room slash library. This is where I spend every morning. I sit here in the middle and I put on my app and I do my meditation here. Some really cool stuff in here. This is an original Richard Avedon book called, “Observations,” that he signed.

These are vintage Hermes, little ashtrays that I’ve had since I was like 20. This was my invitation to the Alaia Couture show last summer. They said, “Bring your invitation with you.” So we all took our chairs and watched the show and I took my chair with me because it’s so cool. [lively music]

All right, “AD,” that was really fun. But I gotta go. I got, I got things to do, you know, people to see. Bye. [door clicks open] I told you to leave.