Step Inside Amber Valletta’s Eco-Friendly LA Sanctuary (original) (raw)

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Having first risen to fame in the 1990s, influential supermodel Amber Valletta remains very much in demand, fronting campaigns for such luxury brands as Loewe, Saint Laurent, Stella McCartney, and many others. But she is also a leading climate change activist: She serves as British _Vogue_’s contributing sustainability editor and the Karl Lagerfeld brand’s sustainability ambassador, and has participated in several of Jane Fonda’s Fire Drill Fridays protests in Washington, DC, where she has been arrested a few times alongside other activists. (Full disclosure: She recounted how Fonda “was there with snacks when you got out of jail” during an interview with me for my podcast, The Green Dream.)

Valletta tries to fold her pro-environmental ethos into every corner of her life, including her home. Thus, she, her fiancé, the fashion hairdresser Teddy Charles, and her friend the Los Angeles–based interior designer Ross Cassidy, have worked to turn a new hilltop house in Los Angeles into a model of sustainability.

Charles, in a Gabriela Hearst sweater and Levi’s jeans, and Valletta, wearing a Loewe sweater, Our Legacy jeans, and Sophie Buhai earrings, with Bella, a European Doberman pinscher, in the living room. Photograph by Glen Luchford; painting by Alexandre Clanis.

Art: Alexandre Clanis/Galerie Pradier-Jeauneau, Paris, 2023. Glen Luchford/Art Partner.

Valletta met Cassidy about 17 years ago, when she was living in Santa Monica. Before knowing who he was, she’d pass by his office/home during her workouts, spy “these beautiful people working inside,” and wonder who they were and what they were up to. Finally, one day she crossed Cassidy on his bike, made the connection, and they immediately clicked. She hired him to help renovate the Santa Monica pad, and when she moved a few years later to the Pacific Palisades, he updated that one too.

Once she found the new place—a partially built six-bedroom house, on the edge of a rural canyon—she called Cassidy again, but with a new mandate: Create a home that is “extremely calming and feels like a sanctuary—a place where, when you come in from the world, you can exhale,” she says. And be as environmentally friendly as possible.

In the kitchen/breakfast room, vintage stools slide under the island, and oak chairs by Emil Lagoni Valbak pull up to a vintage French farmhouse table. Apparatus hanging light; Rose Uniacke sconce; Rohl sink fittings; Wolf range; artworks by Richard Serra (left) and Brice Marden (right).

Art: © 2024 Richard Serra / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

That meant rethinking the approach, inside and out. Diaz + Alexander Studio, a development and architectural design firm in Los Angeles founded and run by Rob Diaz and Mark Alexander, had already constructed the foundation and frame. “The shape was there, so we worked with them on the finishes, to make it sustainable and bring it into the context of its environment,” Cassidy says.

They wired the house for solar panels, which will go on the roof, once they are delivered. “There’s a backlog in California—too much demand, which is great,” the designer notes. They put in double-glazed windows, which are required for new construction in California and “help thermal-insulate the house,” he explains. And they clad much of the exterior with responsibly sourced dove gray and sand-hued stone from Eco Outdoor in Los Angeles. “Light stone reflects light and keeps the house cooler,” Cassidy points out. “And stone lasts forever and is no-maintenance. If you think about the midcentury houses across Los Angeles, they always had stone walls. It’s nice that stone is back in fashion.”

For the interior walls, Valletta wanted to avoid conventional paint, which often emits volatile organic compounds, or VOCs—chemicals that can be carcinogenic. Instead, she and Cassidy chose natural clay plaster tinted with natural pigments by Clayworks of Cornwall, England, which was manipulated to create smooth and fluted textures. “In the summer, it stays cool,” Valletta says. “And in winter, it warms up and stays warm.”

A vintage French ceramic owl lamp with a rattan shade glows in the powder room. 1950s Paulo Buffa mirror; a 1950s Italian tailpipe sconce; pink marble countertop with integrated sink; Samuel Heath faucet.

The decor is eco-minded too. Rather than kit the house out with new furniture, Valletta reupholstered pieces she already had, like a pair of American-made BDDW chairs she bought from her friend the model Carolyn Murphy. “When Carolyn saw them, she said, ‘Oh, my gosh, they look so good! They have a great second life.’ ” So do Valletta’s old kitchen chairs: “They were black with leather seats, and that just wasn’t right for the house,” she recounts. “We scraped down the wood and found they were white oak, and re-covered the seats with beige linen.”

To fill in the gaps, she went vintage—like the Murano chandelier in her office, which she picked up at the flea market in Paris—or local and artisanal. The cabinet knobs in the library, for example, were made by LA-based photographer, publisher, and jewelry designer Lisa Eisner. “They look like little pieces of jewelry,” Valletta says. The carpets are made of natural fibers, and the linens, curtain fabrics, and upholstery in organic or sustainable materials, such as Pierre Augustin Rose chairs in the office, which are covered in a fuzzy wool blend from Pierre Frey. “The manufacturing processes for natural-fiber fabrics are cleaner than for synthetics or polyester,” Cassidy says. “Plus, they are so much more beautiful.”

Outside, where the family spends a fair amount of time, Valletta and Charles planted a desert garden that requires little water and have thrown wildflower seeds onto the hill behind the house. “We’ve seen owls by the pool, hawks circling above, a bobcat, coyotes, butterflies, praying mantises,” she notes.

“It’s a good vibe here.”

Amber Valletta’s LA home appears in AD’s April 2024 issue. Never miss an issue when you subscribe to AD.

Amber Valletta barefoot wearing white dress to left, posing with Teddy Charles who is wearing dark sweater and jeans, outside on brick patio of her LA home standing beside dining table surrounded by chairs; stone facade; grass in foreground; greenery climbing up pergola