I was a little bit shy about going on a celebrity homes tour when I was in Hollywood. After all, I was not some gushing fan boy hoping for the merest glimpse of some Hollywood starlet. Don't get me wrong ? if I had seen some celebrities home, it would have made a good story to tell my friends. After all, when you are visiting Hollywood, people always want to know who you run into. It is as if the picture the whole sprawling city to be nothing but two or three blocks crowded with actors and producers.
No, the real reason that I was there was to take a look at celebrity house architecture. As a reader of Architecture Digest, I have been really interested in the houses of the rich and famous for some time. Celebrity houses run the gamut. Some celebrities homes are huge and gaudy. Many people think that this is the norm in Hollywood, and in some areas it is. After all, rich and famous have greater luxury to be bizarre than the rest of us. They always have plenty of hangers on to tell them that, no matter how ostentatious their celebrity homes, how strange their behavior, or how bad their publicity is, they are doing everything fine. Even so, there are quite a few celebrities with taste. Some of the celebrity home designs represent not bizarre acts of conspicuous consumption, but rather tasteful architecture.
One of the best things about celebrity homes is that, with all that money and power, people feel more free to express themselves. If there is one commonality between all of the houses, it is that no one wants to fit into the conventional mold of society. Some celebrity homes are just huge McMansions. Each one strives to be bigger than the last. Other times, celebrities and are motivated by a particular period. Some celebrity homes wish that they were medieval castles or forts, others ascribe to an art deco look or a modernist aesthetic.
Any home you can imagine building, someone has already thought of and built. It is really extraordinary to see it all. Above all, going on the celebrity homes tour was a fantastic chance for sightseeing. Rarely can you see so many architectural marvels, experiments, miracles, and disasters so close together. I bet that the people around LA go into celebrity neighborhoods all the time. I know that I would.
|
