Architectural Digest at 100

When Diane Keaton decided to sell her Beverly Hills home—a stunning Spanish Colonial Revival she had painstakingly restored with designer Stephen Shadley—she didn't just list it. She created a book, 'California Romantica,' to document its soul, turning a real estate transaction into a cultural artifact. It’s a move that captures a unique celebrity impulse: the desire not just to live beautifully, but to curate that beauty, to archive it, and to share it as a definitive statement. This is about storytelling. For a certain echelon of the famous, a home becomes more than a sanctuary; it becomes a set piece, a physical manifestation of a carefully constructed public narrative, as meticulously crafted as any film role or album concept.

From Julianne Moore’s serene West Village townhouse to David Bowie’s art-filled Manhattan sanctuary, the spaces are as diverse as the stars themselves, yet they all serve this dual purpose of private refuge and public declaration. The desire to see inside these worlds is insatiable, offering a glimpse of authenticity behind the velvet rope. This fascination with the intersection of personality and place, of private life and public design, is precisely what Architectural Digest has chronicled for a century. The magazine didn’t just document trends; it became the official record-keeper for this unique form of celebrity expression. To mark its centennial, the venerable institution decided to open its own archives, creating a definitive collection of this cultural history.

Leading this monumental undertaking was Amy Astley, the magazine’s editor-in-chief since 2016. Having previously founded and helmed Teen Vogue, Astley possessed a keen understanding of how culture, personality, and aspiration intersect. She recognized that the magazine's hundred-year legacy was more than a collection of beautiful rooms; it was a story about how the world’s most watched people choose to live. 'Architectural Digest at 100' was conceived as an authoritative visual anthology, a curated tour through the private worlds that have shaped our collective dreams of the perfect home.

Module 1: The Home as Personal Sanctuary

We've moved beyond the era of the formal, untouched living room. Today, a home’s primary job is to be a sanctuary. A retreat from the noise of public life. This book shows how influential figures craft spaces for healing, family, and authentic self-expression.

The first principle is clear. A home must prioritize comfort and atmosphere over mere decoration. Matthias Vriens-McGrath, a photographer and creative director, puts it perfectly. He says he doesn’t care how many exquisite objects you put in a room. If it’s not warm and comfortable, no one wants to be there. This idea is a recurring theme. We see it in the private quarters of the Obama White House. Decorator Michael S. Smith designed the master suite as a sanctuary. It needed to be private, elegant, and calm. The goal was simple. Ensure the President could get a good night's sleep. The design served a fundamental human need.

This leads to a powerful insight. Designers use their own homes as laboratories for personal expression. They are not bound by client constraints. They can indulge their own fantasies. Mario Buatta, a legendary designer, called his own apartment deeply "personal." He explained that when clients ask for a room just like his, they are asking for the impossible. A professional's home is a unique accumulation of their life, not a replicable formula. It’s organized clutter. It's a collection of stories. Each object has a history. This is where a house becomes a home.

And here’s the thing. This quest for sanctuary often involves a deliberate rejection of convention. A home can be a powerful statement against bourgeois norms. Think of Donatella Versace’s Milan apartment. It had grand neoclassical columns. But its real purpose was for life and connection. She famously held parties in her master bath with friends like Elton John. The home was a stage for life. Similarly, fashion designer Michael Kors sees his neutral, Zen-like penthouse as a "palette cleanser." It’s a quiet retreat from the color and chaos of his professional world. For him, true luxury in New York is space and light.