Inside Amber Valletta’s Eco-Friendly LA Sanctuary
Having first risen to fame in the 1990s, influential supermodel Amber Valletta remains very much in demand, fronting campaigns for such luxury brands as Loewe, Saint Laurent, Stella McCartney, and many others. But she is also a leading climate change activist: She serves as British Vogue’s contributing sustainability editor and the Karl Lagerfeld brand’s sustainability ambassador, and has participated in several of Jane Fonda’s Fire Drill Fridays protests in Washington, DC, where she has been arrested a few times alongside other activists. (Full disclosure: She recounted how Fonda “was there with snacks when you got out of jail” during an interview with me for my podcast, The Green Dream.)
Valletta tries to fold her pro-environmental ethos into every corner of her life, including her home. Thus, she, her fiancé, the fashion hairdresser Teddy Charles, and her friend the Los Angeles–based interior designer Ross Cassidy, have worked to turn a new hilltop house in Los Angeles into a model of sustainability.
They wired the house for solar panels, which will go on the roof, once they are delivered. “There’s a backlog in California—too much demand, which is great,” the designer notes. They put in double-glazed windows, which are required for new construction in California and “help thermal-insulate the house,” he explains. And they clad much of the exterior with responsibly sourced dove gray and sand-hued stone from Eco Outdoor in Los Angeles. “Light stone reflects light and keeps the house cooler,” Cassidy points out. “And stone lasts forever and is no-maintenance. If you think about the midcentury houses across Los Angeles, they always had stone walls. It’s nice that stone is back in fashion.”
For the interior walls, Valletta wanted to avoid conventional paint, which often emits volatile organic compounds, or VOCs—chemicals that can be carcinogenic. Instead, she and Cassidy chose natural clay plaster tinted with natural pigments by Clayworks of Cornwall, England, which was manipulated to create smooth and fluted textures. “In the summer, it stays cool,” Valletta says. “And in winter, it warms up and stays warm.”
The decor is eco-minded too. Rather than kit the house out with new furniture, Valletta reupholstered pieces she already had, like a pair of American-made
BDDW chairs she bought from her friend the model Carolyn Murphy. “When Carolyn saw them, she said, ‘Oh, my gosh, they look so good! They have a great second life.’ ” So do Valletta’s old kitchen chairs: “They were black with leather seats, and that just wasn’t right for the house,” she recounts. “We scraped down the wood and found they were white oak, and re-covered the seats with beige linen.”
Valletta in Dries Van Noten Shirt
Outside, where the family spends a fair amount of time, Valletta and Charles planted a desert garden that requires little water and have thrown wildflower seeds onto the hill behind the house. “We’ve seen owls by the pool, hawks circling above, a bobcat, coyotes, butterflies, praying mantises,” she notes.
The terrace’s 1950s. Roger Capron
table and chairs were found at a Paris flea market, and the hanging basket light was found in Saint-Tropez. Walls of natural stone and bleached cedar siding; reclaimed cobble paving. Landscaping conceived by Bradley James Bontems Landscape Design and Contracting.
in a vintage Peruvian ceramic planter stands in the entry hall. Oak floors here and throughout from. Eco Outdoor
The living room is outfitted with a Croft House sectional, a Louise Liljencrantz walnut cocktail table, 1950s Gianfranco Frattini chairs, and a 1960s French floor lamp.
A 1960s. Aldo Nason chain-link fixture hangs over a custom oak dining table surrounded by Hans Wegner chairs., J.D. Staron rug; window treatments by Everhem; custom fluted walls by Clayworks.
Designer Ross Cassidy fashioned the primary bedroom’s bed and rug. Roman shades by Everhem; plant from The Haus Plant; nightstand by Disc Interiors; table lamp from Blackman Cruz.
The primary bath features Rohl plumbing fixtures. Walls finished in custom clay plaster by Clayworks; vintage Italian sconce; leather laundry basket by Pinetti; limestone paver flooring.