Celebrity Home of the Week: Sigrid Olsen's Home

Sorry for the late posting.  Today is such a terrible news day. One day after the mass shooting at Fort Hood, we now have another mass shooting, this time in Orlando. It's the kind of day to make us question why we do what we do.

FIND OUT WHO THIS WOMAN IS and SEE WHY HER HOME INSPIRES US>>

In searching for something to put it all in perspective, we ran across a slideshow from the New York Times about the home of well-known fashion designer Sigrid Olsen.  Until last year, Sigrid designed clothes under her own label for Liz Claiborne.  She has since traded in her spacious home for a tiny bungalow in the Rocky Neck art colony of Gloucaster, MA.

What you don't learn from the slideshow is that Sigrid battled breast cancer a few years ago, which ultimately led her to back to her earlier love of painting. 

She now sells her artwork from her 1,200 square foot bungalow, which houses her combined living, work, and gallery spaces.  The dining room table (above) serves as her work space and her husband (below)manages the gallery from the living room. 

The garage provides additional studio space for Sigrid as well as her 90-year old father (below), who is also a painter.

In short, we are inspired by Sigrid and we love her home.  It is our Celebrity Home of the Week. 

The recent shootings remind us how fragile life can be.  We believe the choices we make about where to live and how to live should reinforce what is really important to us.  In Sigrid's case, it isn't a spacious mansion or a lot of high end furniture that brings her joy.  It's a small home in a lovely little community where she can pursue her passion for art and spend time with her family.

So, to answer our own question:  We examine the homes of celebrities to find inspiration and at the same time learn more about what's important to them and ourselves. 

Tell us, does your home inspire you?  Does it reinforce what is really important to you?

Photos by Jodi Hilton for the NY Times.  To learn more about Sigrid's Art, visit http://www.sigridolsenart.com/.

Celebrity Home of the Week: Dorothy Dandridge's Former Home

Earlier this week, we featured Dorothy Dandridge's former L.A. home located just off the Sunset Strip. To put it simply, we LOVE it! It's our Celebrity Home of the Week!

Now we'll just sit back and imagine ourselves lounging in the tub, staring out at this spectacular California view:

Ciao!

Celebrity House of the Week: James Franco's Hollywood Chateau

Listen up, all you James Franco-philes out there!  The sexy star seen in Milk, Pineapple Express, and the Spider-Man flicks has placed his gorgeous chateau on the Sunset Strip up for sale.  This right-sized 3BR/3.5BA house has 4,000 sq. ft. and comes with city views.  The asking price for this Hollywood beauty (No, not him!) is $3,695,000.

The master bedroom study above offers a glimpse of the city views as well as the type of decor and architectural details found throughout the house.   We'll show you the master bedroom in a little bit.

There are plenty of other wonderful lounging areas too.  Perhaps even too many!  Here are a couple:

The kitchen and dining areas are also nice:

But we like the bathrooms even better:

The bottom photo is of the master bath.

See MASTER BEDROOM & MORE PHOTOS after the jump!!!

Here are couple of shots of the master bedroom.  Notice there's yet another lounge area!

Last but not least, we have a few photos of the back porch, yard, and pool.  Yes, there's yet another lounge area steps from the back yard!

We love this house!  It is our Celebrity House of the Week.  All in all, it's just a terrific home.  We're guessing it won't be on the market long.

These days, it seems as if almost every house for sale that we choose as our Celebrity House of the Week is awash in a sea of white.  We're starting to wonder whether real estate agents are all just staging these houses this way to emphasize the architecture.  Don't get us wrong, it works!  And it certainly beats that stale budget catalog furniture look usually offered up by home stagers.

For more photos --yes there are MANY more -- go here.  Hat tip to Trulia. 

Celebrity Home of the Week--NOT!

This was a tough week to decide on our Celebrity Home of the Week.  The homes featured this week belong to some of the finest interior designers and arbiters of style in America.  We simply cannot choose.  So we won't.  Sorry.

Ciao!

CHOW: Music Digs Rule!

TGIF! It's time to choose our Celebrity Home of the Week. Once again, we have three candidates. Only this week, they're ALL musicians. Purely a coincidence, we swear! (Forgive us Bryan Batt!)

First up, John Mayer . . .


and his SoHo digs:


Pros
*He's cute, so we don't give a crap about what his place looks like.
*He thought enough to hire a big name designer (Georgio Armani) to design his digs.

Cons
*Georgio Armani doesn't know d*ck about interior design!
*John couldn't "man up" enough to fire Armani midway through the project.



Next up, John Legend . . .
and his East Village Digs:

Pros
*His sexy voice is pure velvet, so again we don't give a crap about what his place looks like.

*His place is truly SPECTACULAR!

Cons

*It's not like he had anything to do with the interior design. He doesn't even own it yet.

*His place is not in SoHo.

Finally, Lenny Kravitz . . .

and his SoHo digs:

Pros
*He is cute AND has a sexy voice, so . . . well, you know the drill by now.
*His condo was actually graced by his presence and reportedly had personality at some point in the past.

Cons
*His place matches his album cover! Does that mean Lenny has lost his personality too?
*Any place that can't sell in SEVEN years is jinxed!

Our verdict? We were almost ready to declare this week another three-way tie. But we went back to look at the slideshow of John Legend's place. We were simply blown away by the views and everything else. F*ck SoHo!

Congratulations, John Legend! You have the Celebrity Home of the Week! Ciao!

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Celebrity Home of the Week

Well, we knew it would be a tough decision this week. We just didn't know it would be this tough! Let's have a look back at the candidates:


Candidate #1: Shia LaBeouf's Cool Sherman Oaks Home

PROS
* Gorgeous mid-century house. Hollywood style and glamour.
* Shia's a Hollywood Hottie!

CONS
* Shia is at about minute 12 of his 15 minutes of fame.
* The house is so fab, we're just plain jealous! Yes, we reserve the right to 'playa hate.'


Candidate #2: The "Ferris Beuller" House of Glass

PROS
* Another mid-century beauty (albeit probably freezing cold during those Chicago winters).
* Nice period furniture pieces inside.
* It's for sale. So you can own a piece of movie history . . . if you've got $2.3M.

CONS
* Infamous Ferrari is not included in the sales price.
* It's not really a celebrity's house. This actually disqualifies it from winning.
* It's not even the movie house of the movie's only celebrity--to the extent that we're still calling Matthew Broderick a celeb. Remember, it was his friend Cameron's house.

(Cameron was played by Alan Ruck, in case anyone cares and we know no one does.)


Candidate #3: Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's Overpriced New York Home


PROS
* It's a normal person's house. (Of course, Geithner may be a psycho.)
* It's the first house to garner its own segment on The Daily Show.
* It's possibly still for sale on the down low + at a greatly reduced price after that segment.

CONS
* That now infamous royal blue tile in the bathroom could get on our nerves.
* That aqua blue and salmon pink bedroom could make us commit hari-kari!
* It's overpriced, Geithner, you dumba$$! No wonder folks want you fired!


Candidate #4: Whoopi Goldberg's Eccentric SoHo Co-op

PROS
* It's a cool and quirky SoHo loft that happens to be for sale.
* AOL thought enough of it to put it on full blast to its subscribers yesterday.
* Despite our observations, a lot of people seemed to really dig her place.

CONS
* It's a little too quirky for us.
* It's a little too Shabby Chic-y for us.
* Did she ever f*ck Ted Danson there? Ewww!


So after weighing all the pros and cons, we have to call it a three-way tie this week. Congratulations Shia, Tim, and Whoopi. All of you have the Celebrity Homes of the Week!

Ciao!

Celebrity Home of the Week

Gee, it was a tough decision this week. Lots of house eye candy. The three finalist were Debi Mazar's livable Los Angeles villa, Biz Stone's artsy Berkeley bungalow, and Rob Cohen's Balinese beauty. Here's a recap:

1. Debi's Digs. Her home is very livable and stylish. But she probably could have used a designer to pull together her dining room a little. Still, you can't beat that cool chandelier.

2. Biz's Digs. His home is ultra cool. It's also located in a hip, funky town full of intellectuals. Perfect spot for a creative tech genius type. But at 800sf it was a little on the small side. Plus, that decor certainly was uninspiring--staged or not.

3. Rob's Digs. His vacation home is unbelievably beautiful--pure fantasy. We really dig the seclusion offered by the separate bedroom pavilions. And it's eco-friendly to boot. But Bali sure is a long way away. And what happens when that volcano erupts?

We have to declare Debi Mazar's digs the winner this week! We could actually picture ourselves living in her house. Makes us wonder why she's put it up for sale . . . .

Ah well, congratulations Debi! You have the Celebrity Home of the Week (CHOW)!

CIAO!

CHOW & CIAO!

It was an eventful first week for us here at Celebrity Digs HQ! Lots of juicy bits on all sorts of famous folks and how they're livin'. We'll see you back here on Monday.

Before we go, we have to identify our first CHOW--Celebrity Home of the Week:

You guessed it! Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch! We love it and we love him!

Ciao!

Let's Dish the Dirt on Celebrity Homes!

ALL celebrities, some rich and some not-so-much, HAVE to live somewhere . . . .

Some celebrities live in beautiful homes . . . .

And some . . . well . . . not-so-much!

Here at CELEBRITY DIGS HQ you'll get the latest scoop on celebrity homes found in shelter mags and pulled from other news sources.

Naturally, we'll tell you which celebrity homes we really DIG! And we'll even take a few "digs" at celebrity homes we really hate!

Can't wait to dish with you!

--Celebrity Digger (C.D.)