This is Dita Von Teese’s house, a LA multihyphenate star that adds her home with plenty of her personality while preserving the most she could from her Tudor Revival residence’s original character.

It’s been five years since the most famous burlesque star and style icon, DIta Von Teese, bought this house in LA, and yet, it still is a work in progress. The truth is that he confesses to don’t like to finish everything and prefers to keep having projects and so keep adding new things to the place.

When the star moved in, the entryway was in a lighter color palette which she confessed was one of her worst nightmares. Looking back to all her inspirations, all of them were similar to castles and historical interiors that haven’t been touched in a hundred years. One of them was a castle in France, that is a little haunted, a little bit of gothic, and a little bit dark and she asked the decorative artist, Caroline Lizzarraga if it was doable which the artist agreed. Visitors that take a closer look will see hidden in the mural’s design all sorts of fantastical details such as spiders, mushrooms, and snakes. The torchlike standing lamps were a gift from a friend, vintage jewelry dealer Connie Parente. Can be also seen a collection of birds which is only a sample of Von Teese’s extensive antique taxidermy collection. She is aware that this style might freak out most people but she is obsessed with the way things used to be done in the past.

TBDs withstanding, the star was responsible for managing and renovating the 3.200 square foot house with four bedrooms Tudor Revival style home and making it work to match her unique inimitable punk pinup style. The star explains that when she arrived in the house it was all white and she has a huge adverse to houses with walls painted in white and, as so, that was exactly her first order: go room by broom and start adding color and excitement to each one of them.

The living room is one of the parts of the house that the star uses the most especially at meetings so for her was super important to express her personality in a beautiful and functional way. The blue couch is a reproduction of her favorite store in Dallas, Deco-Dence. The original one was too small and, as so, the final one was adapted to be larger on a more modern scale. The Deco Chinese rug is a bargain find the star found on ETSY, and the working phonograph is a Rose Bowl Flea Market score. In the room can be founded some records and antique objects to express the cool uniqueness and maximalist taste and turn the house into a home

Antiques and taxidermy passionate, Von Teese holds the past in reverence – the star is extremely sensitive and details oriented. She was adamantly opposed to bulldozing through with a conventional modern things-up design approach. She expresses that feels like she is living in a ’20s or ’30s house she made her fall in love with it besides the house’s past: It made a huge difference for her when she was purchased this house to know its past where children were raised and the previous owner even got married there with brings a cheerful past and good energy to the house.

A view over the back of Dita Von Teese’s Tudor Revival-style home in LA features a roomy pergola-covered terrace right next to the dining room, perfect for alfresco meals. The house features another terrace outside of the master suite. This one leads to a swimming pool surrounded by a private and lush landscape
When Von Teese bought the property, security and privacy were a top concern, and, as so, she built a big wall around the perimeter. She also planted the “most dangerous, most spiky plants” she could find. At the same time, she kept a ‘Snow White garden vibes with epic pine trees of rolling baby tears moss. She is currently looking for faux-bois to go in that seating nook. Von Teese wears a dress by Zac Posen. She was with him in an event last year and wore this long yellow ball-grown dress and in the end, he said she should have this short version of it too as so it happened.
When the star got into the kitchen it was all brown which she didn’t like at all but it was almost the same as the original one which incentivized her to add a pop of color. She expressed her desire to have a sexy, womanly, grown-up kitchen. She fell in love with the AGA stove in that racing green and just went from there. She bought the cabinets and most of the furniture in her favorite greens- like jade, mint, British racing green. In fact, the original plan was to go with a brass fixture but it gave away rose-gold copper everything. The stove’s hood was inspired by metal awnings the star had seen driving around LA. She confessed she was literally stopping in front of random houses and taking pictures of their awnings and wondering if it was doable to recreate in her house.

In part, a reason that conquer her was that the kitchen wasn’t overly renovated. She liked to keep things as historical and original as possible. Still, the kitchen was brown and plain, and, as so, she immediately started to make her mark there as brown was her least favorite color which incentivized her to add a pop of another color.

The dining room’s color scheme is based on the bottle design of her favorite perfume, Lou Lou by Cacharel. It’s all red and blue, colors and perfume she always was obsessed with. She teamed up with the decorative artist Caroline Lizzarraga – whom she found on Instagram. They aimed to completely transform the space, painting murals with inset mirrors and lacquering furniture, ceiling, trim, and doors. The tables and chairs are a Rose Bowl Flea Market find. They used to be peach-colored but the star needed some other way more exciting than that. Can be seen a chandelier, an antique Chinese design that used to be hung in a tearoom in the star’s previous LA home. A standing figure lamp was a gift from a friend who had found it on Facebook Marketplace. Von Teese also replaced the bulb fixtures with flame-like shades.
A former closet with vanity, that fits the master bedroom, is now Von Teese’s dedicated hairdressing room. Normally Von Teese takes care of her own hair ninety-five percent of the time. If she needs to get things quickly done she double-team, and will have somebody doing her care while she does the makeup. A friend, realtor Philip Dominguez, whom Von Teese calls her “antique enabler”, found the bench for the room.
This red room is Von Teese’s library. Built-in shelves, designed to mirror the room’s preexisting Moorish archways, were added in order to house the star’s extensive book collection and her own as she is also a bestselling author herself. The star’s latest book was precisely a style guide entitled Fashioning the Femme Fatale due next year. The room showcases a lot of Von Teese’s vast antique collection. She confessed she didn’t have room for her full-size Art Decor couch, so she created something with a ’30s look to fit the ambiance, but on a smaller scale. The style icon wears one of her favorite pieces of vintage and extravagant loungewear, which she collects and confesses it has a long train and these long balloon sleeves which look like something out of a movie or a series and make people wonder why.
The star learned the house’s original pool and pool house which had actually been won in a 1935 sweepstakes. When she moved in, the pool house had already been converted into a sauna. Opting for suds over schvitz, Von Teese decided to convert the pool house into her very own pub. It’s another place for her to put a whole other collection of stupid things she might find at flea markets, swords and shields, and pub decor.
What used to be a young girl’s bedroom now is an accessories closet. Shoe shelving units that had been designed for her previous home’s closet made the move and showcase hundreds of pairs of heels. Von Teese confessed she is a shopaholic. It’s just that Cristian Louboutin is one of her closet friends and, as so, she has a lot of shoes. REd lacquer frames on the back wall house the star’s extensive brooch collection. They’re wall decoration and wearable art.
Perhaps, Von Teese’s most treasured possession, this antique vanity- also from DEco-Dence- sits in the corner of her boudoir. It plugs in and lights up. VonTeese worked with her friend, and longtime interior decorator, Stacia Dunnam, to create many of the custom furniture placed in the house, including this stool they created as a perfect pairing to the table.
The bedroom is inspired by iconic sirens. The bed was designed after a Mae West bed with mirrors. The whole room was inspired by Jean Harlow’s bedroom in the movie Dinner at Eight. It might be confusing since all the house is so maximalist and colorful but this room is silver and it is her version of minimalist. Although the star still has multiple items on her must-get list – she is still working on a rug, a design with a big ostrich feather plume. A painting of Von Teese by Olivia de Berardinis hangs over a custom chest of drawers after all, what type of burlesque dancer are you if you don’t have a topless painting of yourself hung in the house.

Source: Architectural Digest