In this episode of 'Open Door', Victoria's Secret and Sports Illustrated swimsuit supermodel Lily Aldridge gives Architectural Digest a tour of the cozy Nashville home she shares with her husband Caleb Followill and their daughter.
While she is admittedly better known as a Victoria’s Secret bombshell and face of Bulgari than an overzealous homemaker, and her other half as the lead singer of rock band Kings of Leon, the couple, parents to six-year-old daughter Dixie, enthusiastically put family life center stage when they’re off duty.
When it comes to model-rocker unions, domesticity is a somewhat foreign concept. Studio 54 set the stage for Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall’s glamorous courtship. Axl Rose and Stephanie Seymour’s volatile romance played out in a series of music videos that ended with her in a coffin (not surprisingly, their unscripted relationship fizzled in almost as dramatic a fashion). But for Aldridge and Followill, who rarely make public appearances à deux, the theatrics appear to be reserved for their charming abode, composed of grand archways, Persian carpets, and a gloriously tiled kitchen. “Home is everything,” says the California native, who relocated to Nashville after meeting her Tennessee-born husband more than a decade ago.
Dixie’s birth sparked the couple’s move from a kicky condo located near the city’s nightlife scene and sports arena to “a home near a great school,” Aldridge says of how their priorities shifted upon becoming parents. She immediately fell in love with this one: “It was beautiful, comfy, cozy.” She pauses. “My husband, on the other hand, wanted to move into a different house.” To help persuade him that the Tudor Revival, though a bit old-fashioned in appearance, was the perfect address, she called on designers and close friends Louisa Pierce and Emily Ward of Pierce & Ward. The duo count Karen Elson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Dakota Johnson among their starry clientele, and Pierce had previously decorated Aldridge and Followill’s condo.
We both travel a lot for work, but we do everything in our power to have a normal life here.
A recognition of the 1930 house’s good bones helped seal the deal: wood floors, beamed ceilings, expansive windows. “I love those details, and they’re hard to re-create,” Aldridge explains. Her husband gave in, and in the span of just four months, during much of which Followill was on tour and Aldridge out of town on modeling assignments, Pierce and Ward renovated and decorated every square inch of the place.
For the decor, Aldridge presented the designers with a Pinterest board of inspirations ranging from romantic English country houses to exotic Moroccan riads. “We were all on the same page,” says Ward, who, with Pierce, cheerfully scavenged antiques stores and eBay for eclectica such as leather club chairs, poufs, chandeliers, and a mélange of midcentury-modern pieces.
Each room is imbued with a relaxed, family-friendly elegance. The kitchen features open cabinetry with a decorative retro tile backsplash, and it’s where Followill holds court.
The living room is framed in arched bookshelves with a fireplace she keeps crackling “until it’s unbearably hot outside” and a pair of club chairs that remind her of the ones her artist father had in his studio during her youth. “The leather was literally peeling off the seats,” she recalls.
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Inside Lily Aldridge's Nashville Home | Open Door | Architectural Digest