A Malibu Airplane House
Rihanna, filmed in front of a Malibu house made from parts of a deconstructed 747 jumbo jet for a Harper's Bazaar cover shoot. This is a Part II for us. A story about the building of this house ran in our May 2010 issue here.
Photographs by David Lauridsen
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Rihanna, filmed in front of a Malibu house made from parts of a deconstructed 747 jumbo jet for a Harper’s Bazaar cover shoot. This is a Part II for us. A story about the building of this house ran in our May 2010 issue here.The house, set high in the Santa Monica Mountains, is the work of architect David Hertz, who saw structure in the chaos of an airplane’s 4.5 million parts, using them to build the main house, plus six smaller buildings, including a barn, an art studio, and a meditation pavilion.
Aeronautical details are everywhere: The plane’s wings cover living and kitchen areas while a first-class stairway provides access to a bank of storage cabinets between the library/media room and a guest room. The cockpit became a skylight; the belly of the plane, a roof for the barn.
And, as the site of a former wonderland compound built by Hollywood set designer Tony Duquette, the property is no stranger to eccentricity. Duquette decorated each of his 21 buildings according to themes like Hamster House (a wooden mobile home) and The Star Barn (filled with movie props)
It’s a story that could only exist in Hollywood. Here’s how it came together:
