Celebrity Home: Malcolm McDowell

Today we are visiting actor Malcolm Mcdowell's renovated 1920 farmhouse in Ojai, California. His wife, designer Kelley McDowell's decorated it in a Spanish Country style. Kelley says:"It's in the middle of an orange grove, under a canopy of ancient oak trees.It was almost a ruin. It was so dark, you couldn't see without the lights on in the daytime. The former owner was a tile setter, and he had tiled over doors. He tiled the front door shut! The kitchen was almost pitch-black. He had built cabinets over the windows."

Malcolm and Kelley McDowell

A lofty old oak towers above the classic Spanish-tile roof.


Antique Navajo rugs form a path on the front porch. She gathered the stones from her property to build the porch: "It looks like a 3,000-year-old road in Rome."


This isn't a very feminine house, but women love it," McDowell says. She painted all the walls and ceilings the starkest white she could find: a Benjamin Moore primer, Super Spec Flat. Both Malcolm and Kelley are collectors of American primitive pieces. She also collects old pottery and Mexican religious art and objects, and antique Navajo rugs.


The dining room's antique table is a mix of birch and pine. The floor is reclaimed wood. Every board was hand-sanded and then assembled in no particular order as they have random widths. They were then treated with Old Masters Gel Stain in Pickling White. Painted armoire from Nathan Turner.


Open shelves in the kitchen hold antique Mexican and French ceramics and mugs by ceramist Karen Donleavy.


Poured-concrete counters on reproduction 17th-century cabinets in the kitchen. Kelley says: "The concrete is practical as well as earthy. I can set hot pans on it." Early American hooked rugs.


Religious art, stars and stripes, and Navajo rugs in the master bedroom. The bed was made from an old picket fence.


The bathroom floor is made of Ojai river rock. Kelley designed the shower door in the style of a metal casement window.


A Suzani quilt and kilim pillows on the guest room's Spanish Colonial-style daybed. The lantern is an early California cowboy lamp.A kilim rug, rocking chair, and a Mexican wood chandelier complete the look.

All images from here.

Celebrity House: Reese Witherspoon

All these photographs belong to Reese Witherspoon's house in Ojai, California. The first set appeared in the listing when Reese bought it so by now the decorating must have changed. Interior designer Kathryn Ireland owned this house before Reese and she decorated it in a bohemian style full of colours. You may like one style or the other, or both! Let me know!

The following photographs show the house as decorated by Kathryn Ireland.


























All images from here

Diane Keaton's home.

Yesterday's post was about the set design made especially for the movie Something's Gotta Give starring Diane Keaton. Even though she was thrilled with the rooms of the new set where she would work, she admitted they were not her style... So, what is her style then?

Let's have a look at her house in Beverly Hills and find out...



See the entrance? Well, that's not the last archway you'll find in her house. She has a passion for archways as you will notice in the following pics.


Isn't the front of the house beautiful? I love this photo. She has managed to enhance the Spanish Colonial Revival style throughout the house.


Second archway. The door leading to the library. The subject of most of her books is photography and architecture. She is also fond of mottoes. This one says: "The eye sees what the mind knows".


Yet another arch in the fireplace brick opening. The windows at the side open to an interior courtyard with a fountain. You can breathe the Spanish influence in this room: from the terra-cota vases to the rug, from the furniture to the small tiles on the staircase.



A view of the dining room as seen from the library.


Inverted lamp shade fixtures give off an interesting indirect light. Make me feel a bit giddy though!



I like the sign and the pottery on the kitchen shelves.


This is the office with archways leading into and out of it. I like the sombreros displayed around the fountain in the courtyard beyond! Actually they are little figurines of men crouching around the fountain. They seem to be asleep with their hats covering their heads.

And the latest news is that she has put her mansion on the market for about $11.9 million. This was back in May this year. I wonder if she has already sold it? Maybe if you hurry you can still buy it!

All images and information from Architectural Digest.