Inside Giada de Laurentiis’s House in California

This article originally appeared in the December 2008 issue of Architectural Digest.

Giada De Laurentiis’s Italian heritage and Hollywood pedigree—her grandfather is the producer (and serious foodie) Dino De Laurentiis—would seem to be ideal qualifications for her hosting gigs on the Food Network. But according to the telegenic chef, her relatives nurtured some family legacies better than others. “We all worked on film sets in the summer to figure out what we wanted to do in the business,” she explains over a home-cooked dinner of Trinidad chicken stew and Swiss chard. “My grandfather, who’s from Naples, is especially Old World: When women get married, they have children, they don’t work. And if they do work, they don’t work in a professional kitchen.”

Discouraged by her parents from attending culinary school after graduation from high school, the celebrity cook, who was born in Rome and raised in Beverly Hills, earned a degree in anthropology from UCLA before moving to Paris to study at Le Cordon Bleu. When she returned to California, she settled down with her then boyfriend, Todd Thompson, a clothing designer for Anthropologie, in his Spanish-style bungalow in Pacific Palisades. She toiled as a restaurant chef, a private chef (to Ron Howard), a food stylist and a caterer before her talents were discovered by the Food Network in 2002. Since then she has hosted a number of series and specials for the network in addition to penning three best-selling cookbooks.

In 2005, two years after getting married, De Laurentiis and Thompson decided it was about time she had a professional. “We loved the charm of the Spanish house and started out just wanting to redo the kitchen,” recalls Thompson. “But we figured out that we couldn’t really live here during the renovation, and it was going to take about the same amount of time as doing the whole house, so we said, ‘Let’s just tear it down and do what we really want to do.’ ” What they really wanted to do was build a simple, modern house that took full advantage of their awe-inspiring address—a bluff-top site overlooking the headlands of the Santa Monica Mountains and the blue swath of the Pacific Ocean. And they knew who they wanted to build it. Thompson had long admired the work of Peter Cohen, an architect and neighbor who shared both Thompson’s love of surfing and his passion for clean, contemporary design.

Inspired in part by a Richard Meier house in Malibu that had caught Thompson’s attention, Cohen came up with a two-story composition of African teak, stucco and glass that conveys a De Stijl-like sense of harmony and order. “Just having that much glass opens up the space,” notes Cohen. “We also used a minimum number of interior walls, and the proportions of the space—the ceilings are nine feet instead of the standard eight—help too.” To provide a measure of privacy for the prominent but small property, the architect set the upstairs master suite back from the street, installed motorized shades in the front windows and used opaque glass inside the balcony railings and in neighbor-facing side windows.

On the first floor, glass sliders at either end of the seamless kitchen, family, dining and living areas open onto an herb garden in front and “an outdoor version of the kitchen and family room” in back. In addition to a full kitchen and comfortable seating around a fire pit, the limestone terrace accommodates a shower and a spa for rinsing off and warming up after a day at the beach. A long balcony deck off the second-floor master bedroom and a 500-square-foot roof deck carry the indoor-outdoor vibe upstairs. The rooftop offers the most panoramic views, but the couple can see the waves from any number of spots in the house, including their bed.

Of course, the heart of this home is the kitchen, which is both glamorous and professional, rather like De Laurentiis herself. It boasts lavish work and storage space and lots of industrial-grade appliances—two dishwashers, four ovens—but what you notice first and last is its fabulous good looks. Dark brown wenge-wood cabinets paired with white-concrete floors and white-marble countertops create a striking chiaroscuro effect. “It had to be a good working kitchen where Giada could do show segments if she wanted to,” says Kevin Fitzsimons, the Toronto-based designer who put the room together. “But we made it look residential. And hot.”

Fitzsimons, whom the couple met through Oprah Winfrey’s chef, Art Smith, incorporated contemporary Italian shelving and furniture throughout the house. For other finishes and furnishings, Thompson and De Laurentiis relied on Michele Trout and Heidi Bonesteel, of the interior design firm Bonesteel Trout Hall. “Todd and Giada are both very fashionable,” says Trout. “They understood nice materials and high design.” The public rooms’ crisp white walls and bleached-white-oak floors, for example, set off dark pieces like a custom-made zebrawood dining table and buffet and dining chairs upholstered in chocolate suede. Murano glass vases and paintings by Thompson’s friends Darren Quinn and Aldo Luongo as well as vintage Italian movie posters from De Laurentiis’s grandfather warm up the rooms.

Thompson and De Laurentiis completed the house in a year and a half and several months later discovered they were expecting a child. Their daughter, Jade, is now eight months old and has ramped up their already busy lives (De Laurentiis’s fourth book, Giada’s Kitchen, came out in September, and she has a new show on FN, Giada at Home). In addition to appropriating their guest room (now a nursery) and gym (a nanny’s room), Jade is turning her parents into homebodies. “With her here I want to be around more, so we end up entertaining more,” says De Laurentiis, removing several cartons of ice cream (pear, lavender, salted caramel) from the freezer for dessert. “Cooking for me is a way to wind down. It’s different from cooking on camera, where you have to do everything twice, for a wide shot and a close-up. Also, I want her to be around me in the kitchen at a young age. That’s the way it was for me as a kid.” Cin can!

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