The popular actress enjoys a spectacular cabin to rest between filming and filming, a model and cozy building renovated under her guidelines.
The intensity of filming makes many actors and actresses invest significant sums of money in special places to recharge their batteries. This is the case of Anne Hathaway, who owns an incredible Swiss-style cabin in California that she bought a few years ago and has reinterpreted to her liking. A place where he will surely have gone to rest after his participation in the movie The Witches. A remake of the 90s film whose role was then played by the great Anjelica Huston.
Both Anne Hathaway and her husband, Adam Shulman, were drawn to the building from the get-go. So it didn’t take them long to get hold of the property. Obviously, they needed to adapt it to their personal needs, so they had an interior design studio for it. Specifically, with Studio Shamshiri, with which they had already worked in the past and with which the actress and her director, Pamela Shamshiri, have similar predilections and understand each other very well.
Anne Hathaway’s Exceptional Cottage
In 2018 they got to work, reinterpreting one of the 15 homes that were designed in the early 20th century in Swiss chalet style in California. A farm of 8,000 square meters (that’s nothing) with 325 square meters of housing. The building was built in 1906 by the architects Myron Hunt and Elmer Gray. It is distributed over two floors, although its volume has grown over the years.
Today, the residence has three beautiful (original) stone fireplaces, three bedrooms, kitchen, main hall, a secret library (mola) and four bathrooms (bathrooms always one more than rooms, remember). It also has a new entrance, built in 1922 next to a ballroom that the designer has transformed into a music room, with a piano and sofas… to dance, the terrace!
A complete rehab
During the rehabilitation of the home, Pamela put all her good work at the actress’s disposal, «providing sophistication, magic and fun throughout the process», according to Shulman himself. In fact, the temporary transition from 1906 to the present day seems to be faithfully represented throughout the building. Mainly its Swiss origin, for which the designer fervently documented herself and kept the wooden structures intact, which were in very good condition.
The reform of the home provided him with a collection of walking sticks at the entrance door, ready to help him navigate the 8,000 square meters of the estate. A door, by the way, sectioned, being able to act as a window. At the entrance you can sit on a Sawkille Co. bench, simple and elegant where you can take off your boots while admiring the black ceramic floor with small white diamonds.
8,000 square meters of farm
The dining room maintains the classic essence of the original building. From it, the upper part of the house is accessed through a robust wooden staircase, with a railing that shows alpine-style cutouts. These patterns go outside, where they are made of dark wood, which stands out against the exterior stone of the cabin flanked by beautiful trees.
Of course, the music room is a unique space. There they have placed a disco ball from the end of the 20th century, several sofas, a Yves Klein Monogold table, the aforementioned piano and books on casual shelves formed in the hollows of the structure, a formidable gabled roof. The room has two access doors that lead to the outside; one sectioned and the other with two sheets, with French-style stained glass windows (throughout the house).
Another important space (my favorite) is the kitchen, which has been renovated from top to bottom. An elongated island was installed there (so that the more, the better, collaborate in the culinary preparation) that opens onto a small breakfast room, with access to the outside, “of course”. All bathed in pale green tones and soft warm tones, this room is, for the designer, a very special place.
The nod to Gucci from Anne Hathaway’s cabin
Colors in various parts of the house are inspired by Gucci’s favorite shirt. A nod to fashion, as are some gold fabrics and rugs in the music room and study inspired by the cape Rihanna wore to the 2015 MET Gala. In one of the stone fireplace lounges, you can see the vintage spirit of the property. Thanks to the leather chair, Jacques Adnet desk, a Royère sofa and a side table by architect Frank Gehry, it’s a pretty giggly potpourri.
The main room has been configured with pink and turquoise tones, turning the room into a space that is well differentiated from the property (as it should be). The terraces are rooms that will be widely used as well. The house is provided with several of them, in which the main one stands out, with a fireplace and vines around a porch, delicious…
The cabin has already enjoyed owners of a certain fame such as Yves Saint Laurent or the film director Wes Anderson. He, along with David Bowie, co-hosted a legendary New Year’s Eve party. So, with the renovations carried out by the Anne Hathaway/Pamela Shamshiri tandem, the cabin only needs to enjoy its illustrious tenants for as long as possible. In the world of cabins, there are some that are luckier than others, and this one is, of course, very lucky.
Photographs by Stephen Kent Johnson – Courtesy of Studio Shamshiri