Celebrity Home Interiors: Cher‘s Malibu Estate Features Decor from Around the World
The singer-actress conjures an exotic residence in her Los Angeles high-rise. Meanwhile at Cher’s legendary Malibu mansion, the home’s Venetian-meets-Moorish architecture led to exotic interiors: A zen vibe mingles with dramatic furnishings, rare artworks and orientalist antiquities. Palatial Indian salvaged architectural elements and carved Moroccan screen come together, employing some of the worlds finest artisans and craftspeople. Interior designer Martyn Lawrence-Bullard.
“My houses,” she muses, “are passions.” They are also decorative barometers of the current state of her never-boring, ever-expanding consciousness. “I’ve played around with Buddhism for years,” continues the actress, a devotee of the American Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön (“a genius in Sheldon Leonard’s body,” she quips). “As corny as it sounds, the soul of the universe, everything that I need, I can find in its practice.”
So it wasn’t surprising when, snapping up two floors and 4,000 square feet in one of Los Angeles’ hottest buildings, Cher turned to friend and interior designer Martyn Lawrence-Bullard to help her conjure up “something ethnic, spicy and romantic”—albeit in creams, ivories, whites and buttery beiges. “Though I loved collecting Gothic and can spend hours drawing with every shade of Pantone pen, I prefer a neutral palette, especially in my bedrooms, because the colors are so easy to live with.”
Armed with his mandate, Lawrence-Bullard started the design ball rolling by eliminating the apartment’s extant 12 rooms in favor of two loft-like open floors connected by a spiral staircase. “I always wanted an apartment that was one big bedroom,” says Cher, “because that’s really where I live, starting from the days when Sonny and I could only afford a bedroom.”
