Supermodels know a thing or two about making a visual statement. From strutting on runways to posing in glossy magazines, these individuals are well versed in the balance of light, form, and space. Coincidentally, these skills also come into play in interior design, so it’s perhaps no huge surprise that many supermodels live in dazzling homes. And over the years models at the height of their careers—like Cara Delevingne and Naomi Campbell—have been gracious enough to let us peek inside their stunning spaces. Here, we revisit eight of them.
Kendall Jenner’s Tranquil Los Angeles Home
Kendall Jenner’s design team—the mother-and-son duo Kathleen and Tommy Clements, plus the inimitable Waldo Fernandez—didn’t know quite what to expect from their 24-year-old superstar client. “Her taste was surprising, more bohemian and funky than the rest of her family. The mood she described was totally understated and down-to-earth,” Tommy recalls of the team’s initial meetings with Jenner, reportedly the highest-paid model in the world. “Being who she is, we thought Kendall might gravitate toward something more flashy, more va-va-voom. I think we were all thrilled to discover that she has taste beyond her years,” adds Kathleen. Fernandez punctuates the sentiment: “There are plenty of people we know who have traveled extensively and been exposed to so much but don’t absorb anything. Kendall is different. She takes everything in and is confident about the things that resonate with her,” he says.
“I like a house that has character. When I walked into this place, I was immediately drawn to the peaceful Spanish-y, farmhouse-y vibe,” Jenner notes, nicely summing up the hybridized, pan-Mediterranean architecture that proliferates in Los Angeles. “My life involves a lot of chaos and travel and high energy, so I wanted a home that feels serene, a place where I can simply zone out and relax,” she continues.—Mayer Rus
Cara Delevingne’s Delightfully Dizzying Pad
Fabulous genes are not the only inheritance that supermodel and actress Cara Delevingne received from her mother, Pandora. “She used to tell us, ‘If you say you’re bored, then you are boring,’” recalls Cara, the youngest of the three Delevingne sisters. That kernel of wisdom clearly stuck—Cara Delevingne is anything but boring, as her private Los Angeles pleasure dome ably attests. The house feels like Saint-Tropez meets Coney Island meets Cotswolds cottage meets Monte Carlo meets butch leather bar. It’s a heady brew, to be sure, but Delevingne takes it all in stride.
“My work requires me to put on many different hats and costumes. I love slipping into these various characters, so I wanted my home to reflect lots of different themes and moods,” says the unapologetic voluptuary.
Architect Nicolò Bini of Line Architecture, Delevingne’s accomplice/enabler in decorative extravagance (see AD, September 2019), fulfilled his client’s mandate with gusto. First there’s the nature theme, explicated in countless design gestures: walls sheathed in a Gucci wallpaper of overscaled herons; a massive snake carpet in the billiards room and a climbing-leopard carpet on the stair to the upper-floor fun house; a flock of bird sculptures by Mexican artist Sergio Bustamante; and a king’s ransom in ferns, palms, topiaries, and other houseplants.—Mayer Rus
Naomi Campbell’s Sprawling Kenyan Escape
Over the course of her remarkable 35-year career, supermodel Naomi Campbell has blazed trails, stormed catwalks, and graced countless magazine covers. And while most of her legendary peers have long since retired and retreated from the spotlight, at 50 Campbell is as in demand as ever and enjoys a level of visibility models half her age would envy. She recently closed Fendi’s spring 2021 couture show at the Palais Brongniart in Paris, new artistic director of womenswear Kim Jones’s first for the venerable Roman fashion house. Images of Campbell slowly sauntering down the runway in a sublime silver cape and matching imperial gown set the internet ablaze and left little doubt that she remains one of the most significant models of all time.
In recent years, she’s become the face of Nars (her first beauty campaign ever) and appeared in Burberry and Saint Laurent advertisements, Beyoncé’s beloved “Brown Skin Girl” video, and Amazon’s fashion-competition series, Making the Cut. To the delight of millennials and Gen Z’ers, she’s also a constant presence on social media, regularly updating her more than 10 million Instagram followers (and nearly 500,000 YouTube subscribers) with archival images from her storied career, one-on-one chats with her famous friends for No Filter With Naomi, and videos from her far-flung travels.
Yes, her schedule is relentless, but work fuels her and continues to bring her joy. “First and foremost, never rest on your laurels, and I still like what I do,” Campbell says when asked about her refusal to slow down. “I use myself as a gateway, a connector to uplift and guide my culture on the right path and the direction that they need to be. This drives me.”—Lola Ogunnaike
Lilly Aldridge’s Bohemian 1930s Tudor Revival
If you happen to be driving through Nashville in December and see a stately brick Tudor Revival house spectacularly ablaze with holiday lights, you just might have hit on the dwelling of Lily Aldridge and Caleb Followill. While she is admittedly better known as a Victoria’s Secret bombshell and face of Bulgari than an overzealous homemaker, and her other half as the lead singer of rock band Kings of Leon, the couple, parents to six-year-old daughter Dixie, enthusiastically put family life center stage when they’re off duty. “Caleb jokes that it feels like the Griswold house,” Aldridge says with a laugh of her self-proclaimed “mini Christmas village.”
When it comes to model–rocker unions, domesticity is a somewhat foreign concept. Studio 54 set the stage for Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall’s glamorous courtship. Axl Rose and Stephanie Seymour’s volatile romance played out in a series of music videos that ended with her in a coffin (not surprisingly, their unscripted relationship fizzled in almost as dramatic a fashion). But for Aldridge and Followill, who rarely make public appearances à deux, the theatrics appear to be reserved for their charming abode, composed of grand archways, Persian carpets, and a gloriously tiled kitchen. “Home is everything,” says the California native, who relocated to Nashville after meeting her Tennessee-born husband more than a decade ago. “We both travel a lot for work, but we do everything in our power to go in and out as fast as possible so we can have a normal life here.”
Dixie’s birth sparked the couple’s move from a kicky condo located near the city’s nightlife scene and sports arena to “a home near a great school,” Aldridge says of how their priorities shifted upon becoming parents. She immediately fell in love with this one: “It was beautiful, comfy, cozy.” She pauses. “My husband, on the other hand, wanted to move into a different house.” To help persuade him that the Tudor Revival, though a bit old-fashioned in appearance, was the perfect address, she called on designers and close friends Louisa Pierce and Emily Ward of Pierce & Ward. The duo count Karen Elson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Dakota Johnson among their starry clientele, and Pierce had previously decorated Aldridge and Followill’s condo.—Jane Keltner de Valle
Taylor Hill’s Rustic Nashville Retreat
Three years ago, Colorado-born model Taylor Hill was considering buying her first Manhattan apartment. Then a fateful visit to see a friend in Nashville changed everything. “I was like, What is this city? I loved it,” says Hill. “And I started looking for houses then.”
After being underwhelmed by other homes on the market, Hill was stopped in her tracks when she stepped inside what ended up being her dream home—a rustic-looking 1936 log cabin with a rich Nashville pedigree. It was built by Wold | HFR Design, the architecture firm responsible for renovating iconic local buildings, including the Ryman Auditorium and the Parthenon.
Hill’s house sits back from the street on a lush, tree-filled 1.29-acre corner lot, with thick bamboo groves shielding the home from the busy 12South neighborhood just blocks away. With abundant outdoor living space and a shaded pool, it’s a verdant oasis in what has become one of the country’s quickest growing cities.—Libby Callaway
Behati Prinsloo and Adam Levine’s Soulful Los Angeles Home
Life at the home of Adam and Behati Prinsloo Levine doesn’t seem very, well, rock-and-roll-y. Or supermodel-y, for that matter. The rooms aren’t cavernous, there’s no crazy waterfall or lagoon, and instead of zebra stripes and patent leather, all the furniture is covered in lovely linens and bouclés. Nothing feels even vaguely louche. To be fair, Adam does own a king’s ransom in groovy, blue-chip sneakers, but the closet where he keeps them has a Rick Owens daybed smack in the middle of it. That’s something you don’t see on your average episode of Cribs.
“We didn’t want a palatial McMansion. That’s just not who we are,” insists the Maroon 5 frontman, who is currently touring in support of the band’s latest album, Jordi. “We were attracted to this place because it felt homey. You could tell that kids had lived here before,” adds Behati, describing the allure of the couple’s Pacific Palisades property as a refuge for themselves and their two daughters, Dusty and Gio.
Adam and Behati once again tapped Clements Design—the AD100 firm’s first monograph, Eight Homes (Rizzoli), launches this month—to conjure their vision of a high-design, low-pretension family oasis. “We basically stripped it all down. We simplified the materials and color palette and exposed the bones of the house to create a beautiful, neutral backdrop for their collections of art and design,” Tommy Clements notes. “Adam is an obsessive design junkie. He and Behati like to live with beautiful things, but in a super-casual way, where the kids have the run of the house, and friends and family are always welcome,” Kathleen adds.—Mayer Rus
Alessandra Ambrosio’s Southern California Home
“I travel constantly for work, but when I’m not on the road, I just want to be at home with my kids,” Alessandra Ambrosio says, describing her love affair with the Los Angeles–area dream house she shares with her ten-year-old daughter, Anja, and her six-year-old son, Noah. Her 1920s residence in Santa Monica is a quintessentially Angeleno Spanish Colonial Revival design. “I come from a small town in Brazil, and Santa Monica has a similar vibe. I had to be near the beach, someplace where you can feel and smell the ocean breeze. This is my paradise,” she explains.
Ambrosio has lived in L.A. for a decade. She spent five years searching for the perfect spot to put down roots for her family, and the next five years fine-tuning the property to make it completely her own. She met Martyn Lawrence Bullard, the effervescent celebrity AD100 designer, a year and a half ago, after admiring the Mediterranean-style villa Bullard had decorated for actress Ellen Pompeo (AD, November 2014). “Martyn brought a lot of color, texture, and life to the project. I love exotic places, and he knows how to conjure a fantasy that still feels playful and appropriate for kids. I didn’t want anything too stiff or serious,” she says. “I’d describe her style as Brazilian boho meets California rock ’n’ roll,” Bullard observes of his captivating client’s taste. “We wanted to do something that feels young and fresh, not just for the children but for Alessandra as well. She has an incredibly vivacious spirit.”—Mayer Rus
Josephine Skriver and Alex DeLeon’s Modern Nashville Home
Hygge—the Danish concept of creating a cozy home—took the decorating world by storm in recent years, calling for cedar-scented candles and chunky knit throws. But leave it to an actual Dane, Victoria’s Secret Angel and newly minted Maybelline spokesperson Josephine Skriver, to reinterpret it in an unexpected way. The Nashville home Skriver shares with her boyfriend, singer-songwriter Alex DeLeon, eschews earth tones for grayscale, but still projects a palpable feeling of comfort.
“I’ve always liked it clean and simple, but somehow still cozy,” Skriver explains. “I’m not a big fan of a lot of colors, because the design itself has to stand out.” Luckily, her partner has similar proclivities; DeLeon, who performs under the moniker Bohnes, curated the photographic art in the home, almost all of which is in black-and-white. “The house isn’t supposed to be what’s loud,” DeLeon explains. “The life that you live is supposed to be what’s loud. I think that is represented in the house perfectly.”
To that end, the couple painted nearly every room in the three-story home with Sherwin Williams’ Pure White, but softened the effect by adding shiplap and removing plaster to expose some of the original brick. They also worked with Nashville-based designer April Tomlin to create interiors that were equal parts Scandinavian and modern. “I think my entire Pinterest mood board was April’s Instagram,” Skriver laughs. For DeLeon, Tomlin’s greatest skill was being able to manifest the inchoate images in his head. “The best interior designers are the ones that can take what’s in your mind and somehow make it a reality,” he says. “April was great at pulling that out of us.”—Juliet Izon
