Feast your eyes on Gwyneth Paltrow's new manse in Montecito

[Anonymous]

Glad she is so happy and the views in Santa Barbara must be glorious.

Not particularly jealous though - I like the kitchen and informal dining area but the formal dining area and living room does not work for me. The dining room has odd combination of art styles (rustic delft blue plates on wall with gray flowery wall paper, office vibe vinyl swivel dining chairs and odd fireplace that is top heavy and not quite balanced in proportions). Living room has weird lighting on ceiling And again odd mix of styles that don’t quite come together.

However, if GP and her kids are happy, that is great.

I am sure that it is more homey than the bizarre windowless dorm bunker tower that warren buffet is helping to build for UCSB. Why on earth anyone would come up with windowless dorm rooms at a campus surrounded by the ocean on three sides is completely beyond my comprehension. Suffice to say, not every innovative design idea is good.

[Anonymous]

I like the kitchen and dining room but the living room is not for me. I think the bar looks silly. The giant couches don’t look inviting.

[Anonymous]

Just watched the video. Still not my taste, but she clearly loves it and every detail seems personally meaningful to her. My version of house porn is more like the cape cods in the hallmark movies with stained glass windows so clearly my aesthetic is so very different. I do not like marble, cavernous, cold rooms with hard, modernistic edges or extreme minimalism. But again, she seems happy as a clam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Glad she is so happy and the views in Santa Barbara must be glorious.

Not particularly jealous though - I like the kitchen and informal dining area but the formal dining area and living room does not work for me. The dining room has odd combination of art styles (rustic delft blue plates on wall with gray flowery wall paper, office vibe vinyl swivel dining chairs and odd fireplace that is top heavy and not quite balanced in proportions). Living room has weird lighting on ceiling And again odd mix of styles that don’t quite come together.

However, if GP and her kids are happy, that is great.

I am sure that it is more homey than the bizarre windowless dorm bunker tower that warren buffet is helping to build for UCSB. Why on earth anyone would come up with windowless dorm rooms at a campus surrounded by the ocean on three sides is completely beyond my comprehension. Suffice to say, not every innovative design idea is good.

Yes sometimes people have much more money than common sense or human design sense …apart from no natural,light or fresh air in the dorm rooms - only two doors in the tower for fire escape purposes … no wonder the UCSB design review committee chair resigned …

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/22/nightmare-of-the-windowless-dorm-room

In 2016, Charlie Munger, the billionaire vice-chairman of Warren Buffett’s holding company, announced his intention to donate two hundred million dollars to the University of California, Santa Barbara, to be used to build a dormitory. There was “one huge catch,” as Munger, an amateur architect, put it: no windows.

Our design is clever,” Munger assured skeptics. “Our buildings are going to be efficient.” In addition to cutting costs and foiling potential defenestrations, his design would force students out of their sleeping cubbies and into communal spaces—with real sunlight—where, he said, they would engage with one another.
Last month, Munger’s plan was formally accepted by U.C.S.B. without apparent alteration: a nearly two-million-square-foot structure, eleven stories tall, that will house around forty-five hundred students in a hive of tiny bedrooms—the vast majority of which will indeed be windowless. Instead of the real thing, there will be Disney-inspired fake windows, of which Munger said, in an interview with Architectural Record, “We will give the students knobs, and they can have whatever light they want. Real windows don’t do that.” A consulting architect named Dennis McFadden subsequently announced his resignation from U.C.S.B.’s design-review committee. In a letter, which was later leaked, he wrote that “Charlie’s Vision” was “unsupportable from my perspective as an architect, a parent and a human being.”

[Anonymous]

Yes, the UCSB tower is horrific.

[Anonymous]

Another thought - how do her pots and pans look so pristine if she is cooking all the time? Mine are a mess!

[Anonymous]

I don’t get the weird broken mirror with chinoiserie wallpaper in the bathroom. I also don’t get the spa. I need a sauna in my spa, dammit!

The hammock is good. The dining room is good. Everything else is meh.

Overall, I like her outfits more than the house!!

[Anonymous]

The write up in AD is unbelievabley pretentious. What happened to the magazine?

"A ..... while a Lindsey Adelman lighting installation activates the ceiling plane." "..importance of craft and materiality in establishing the home’s soulful spirit" "this house takes its cues from Gwyneth’s height, beauty, and focus on distillation. You see it in the tall bones, the attenuated proportions, the radiused corners"



Where's the vomit emoji?

[Anonymous]

I don't like anything about this. Except maybe the hammock couch swing thing, until I read how wastefully expensive it is.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think this is a house for “mere mortals” but I also don’t think Gwyneth perceives herself as such - and she is unapologetic about it. I think this is why she can be a bit of a controversial figure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just watched the video. Still not my taste, but she clearly loves it and every detail seems personally meaningful to her. My version of house porn is more like the cape cods in the hallmark movies with stained glass windows so clearly my aesthetic is so very different. I do not like marble, cavernous, cold rooms with hard, modernistic edges or extreme minimalism. But again, she seems happy as a clam.

I actually do like marble, cavernous rooms with hard modernistic edges and extreme minimalism. I assume you mean cold as a feeling rather than an actual temperature, as I'm not crazy about the temp either. As a feeling that's subjective from person to person and place to place, of course. That said, I really don't care for her house. To me, it seems like it's not quite enough of one thing or the other. I especially dislike the living room with the weird "light installation" and the 80s looking marble bar. I do like the paintings around the house. The dining room is better. I don't like the hamam at all, but that might be because I lived in Abu Dhabi for years and am just over that sort of thing. I think it's pretentious, silly, and out of place. YMMV, of course.

Yes, she seems happy but I don't care any more than I would about anyone else. Great that she is. I'd like everyone to be happy. Seems like it ought to be a touch easier for her than the average person.

[Anonymous]

Doesn't look homey or livable at all. Except this hammock thing. I'll take one of them (not 62k worth though!) and skip the rest of her icy home.

[Anonymous]

Just checked our Dakota Johnson’s video and I loved her house! Totally different than GP’s - night and day - and I much prefer it.

[Anonymous]

The house is beautiful. The furniture maybe a bit sterile in places. Imagine it will be redone a bit as they settle in. I like the natural light.


The hating GP to hate GP vibe on this thread is hilarious btw. SO invested.

[Anonymous]

What was the deal with her lamenting that she's not drinking this year when she was talking about the bar? That's fine, no problem, it's great for her health, but just seemed like hinting at something - thought it was odd.