So which kooky celebrity lives in a MADHOUSE like this? Model Cara Delevingne’s ‘adult playhouse’ LA mansion features Gucci wallpaper, a ball pit and a ‘vagina tunnel’
Standing beside the 1930s, green-tiled fireplace in her opulent new LA mansion, Cara Delevingne prises open a secret door in the wood-panelled wall, concealed behind a large mirror.
‘This is my vagina tunnel,’ she declares, unabashed, disappearing between two vertical swathes of plush, pink fabric lined with feather boas into a cushioned cave hidden deep inside the wall cavity.
‘I come in here to think. I come in here to create. I feel inspired.’
‘Rebirthed and cleansed,’ Cara adds as she clambers out of the exit, which is designed to look like a washing-machine door.
Welcome to the wacky world of the 28-year-old British supermodel and actress.
Welcome to the wacky ‘adult playhouse’, including a bright pink ball pit, belonging to the 28-year-old British supermodel and actress Cara Delevigne
Her newly renovated home – which she describes as an ‘adult playhouse’ – was bought for £5 million in 2019 and overhauled to the model’s eclectic specifications by architect Nicolò Bini.
The Italian, who worked with Cara and her older sister Poppy on their previous home in the Hollywood Hills, is the ‘Mad Hatter’ to her ‘Alice in Wonderland’, she says.
And there is certainly more than a touch of the Lewis Carroll classic in the whimsical decor. There is another hidden door that leads upstairs, and various hidden spaces.
Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday about the project, Mr Bini says the ‘vagina tunnel’ was just one of Cara’s many weird ideas for the house which includes a ‘sex room’ with padded walls, a stripper’s pole and a swing.
There is a bathroom shrine to David Bowie, a mounted Chanel surfboard, neon signs, a bath with a built-in television and a ball pit into which Cara can jump at the first hint of any ‘sad thoughts’.
Mr Bini says: ‘Cara thinks in ways others can only dream about.
‘We’d already designed three giant bars in the house and then there was this little hidden bar between the living room and one of the bedrooms. She asked me “Can we make a little secret tunnel here?” and I said, “Sure.”
‘Then she said, “Can we make it a vagina tunnel?” That could only have been a Cara idea. And, of course, it was my pleasure to help her vision become a reality.’
Showing cameras around her playboy mansion, Delevinge disappears between two vertical swathes of plush, pink fabric, lined with feather boas. ‘This is my vagina tunnel,’ she declares
The exit to Delevigne’s ‘vagina tunnel’ has been designed to look like a Wascomat washing-machine door
https://youtube.com/watch?v=vx09_4cEzlM%3Frel%3D0%26showinfo%3D1
The interior, filmed for a video for Architectural Digest magazine and with Cara as a tour guide, offers an intriguing insight into her domestic life.
There are rolls of heron-patterned Gucci wallpaper, which cost £370 for two panels, and further wallpaper designed by the British artist Jonathan Yeo, who has previously painted a portrait series of the model he called ‘the perfect muse’.
There is a wall of hats, a room full of trainers and ‘stripper heels’, and a costume room featuring rows of fancy dress.
‘My work requires me to put on many different hats and costumes,’ Cara explains. ‘I love slipping into these various characters, so I wanted my home to reflect lots of different themes and moods.
‘I feel that people need to change a little bit, get out of their heads and have a laugh,’ she adds.
‘It’s definitely “Mad Hatters’ Tea Party”. There’s a jungle theme, there’s “Beverly Hills hotel”, there’s an old English style but also quite typical LA.’
Mr Bini says the pair spent most of the pandemic renovating the four-bedroom, six-bathroom home.
The father-of-two – who has built eco-friendly homes for Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr and other celebrities – said: ‘We did it pretty fast. She was making a movie in Europe for some of the time so we communicated a lot over WhatsApp,’ he explained.
‘We developed a general direction for where the house was going before we started. It was quite a dark house. Initially, I questioned why she would buy it – knowing Cara’s spirit.’
Delevinge’s LA mansion was bought for £5 million in 2019 and overhauled to the model’s eclectic specifications by architect Nicolò Bini
An old dining-room set was re-covered in bright citrus fabrics with Cara’s favourite artwork – a Chemical X sculpture made from thousands of ecstasy tablets encased in acrylic – hung on the wall
In the living room, 14ft-long Chesterfield sofas were re-covered in pale fabric while a traditional chandelier was ‘modified’ with a disco ball and draped with strings of coloured beads to ‘make it more Cara’
The property was built for the deeply religious Von der Ahe family, who made their fortune from a US supermarket chain. Pope John Paul II was once a guest.
It was sold to a designer who favoured heavy furnishings and dark-painted walls. But rather than strip it all out, Mr Bini says Cara was keen to repurpose and recycle as much of the old fixtures and fittings as possible.
An old dining-room set was re-covered in bright citrus fabrics with Cara’s favourite artwork – a Chemical X sculpture made from thousands of ecstasy tablets encased in acrylic – hung on the wall.
In the living room, 14ft-long Chesterfield sofas were re-covered in pale fabric while a traditional chandelier was ‘modified’ with a disco ball and draped with strings of coloured beads to ‘make it more Cara’.
Mr Bini says: ‘She exudes style, taste and elegance but she has a fantastic way of understanding the rules and then wanting to break them. She’s a free, fun spirit and this house radiates that.’
He did not baulk at Cara’s request for a ‘pleasure room’, he adds, as he had already designed one for her previous home. A famous guest in that room was US singer Taylor Swift, a friend of Cara.
He padded the walls to make them soundproof and added padded handcuffs to the plush furnishings and stripper pole.
‘Aside from the fact of what it is and what a room like that is used for, there is a richness of references from the 1970s and how you can use luxurious materials,’ he says.
The playful ideas continue with a poker room draped in red velvet, designed around the surreal, film-noir style of Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive director David Lynch.
Cara says she was recently taught new styles by her godmother, Joan Collins.
As for the ball pit, Cara says: ‘Everyone should have one. It doesn’t matter what age you are. The meaning of this house is just, you never grow up. Always try and maintain some kind of childlike innocence or joy. Or just the need for fun. They’re really great for stress. You can’t cry in a ball pit. The balls hold the stress now.’
There are three giant bars in the sprawling mansion as well as a small hidden bar between the living room and one of the bedrooms, installed at Delevingne’s request
Mr Bini and Delevingne spent most of the pandemic renovating the four-bedroom, six-bathroom home in Los Angeles
Elsewhere, there’s a vintage juke box, an arcade game console and a band room with a drum kit and Chanel guitar gifted by Karl Lagerfeld. A rotisserie oven is built into the blue kitchen.
There are two trampolines outside, where inflatable unicorns float in the pool. ‘It still feels like a home,’ she says. ‘There’s a proper dining room and living room and a great kitchen. But it’s also a kind of journey. The deeper in you go, the more treasures you discover.’
Cara has a scooter to get between the bedroom and the kitchen, because the floor is so hard.
The model, who has spoken of being ‘pansexual’ – which means she can feel attraction to anyone, regardless of their sex or gender identity – has spoken on a recent podcast of wanting to ‘open up the conversation’ around ‘self-pleasure’ and orgasms.
She has enjoyed a string of high-profile romances, including most recently with US actress Ashley Benson. The couple separated after two years in April.
Delevingne’s wacky mansion also includes a bright blue kitchen complete with a built-in rotisserie oven
She has also been previously linked with Paris Jackson, musician St Vincent, actress Michelle Rodriguez, and the English singers Jake Bugg and Harry Styles.
She admits that her sexuality changes ‘like a pendulum’, and one of the bathrooms features ‘his-and-hers sinks… or hers-and-hers, depending on my mood’.
There are bouquets of roses shaped like a vulva in her bedroom – ‘it’s vagina appreciation’, she insists – along with a custom-made 11ft-wide bed set on a raised mirror platform.
A tiny set of steps allow Cara’s dogs, Leo and Alfie, to climb up. There is also a bedside piano ‘so I can just get up and play’.
Another piano, crafted in see-through crystal and thought to be worth £15,000, takes pride of place in a living room. ‘I like to play naked,’ she reveals. ‘Generally, if I’m at home, I would be naked.’
One of the house’s pianos is crafted from see-through crystal and is thought to be worth around £15,000. It takes pride of place in the living room
There is a bathroom shrine to David Bowie, a mounted Chanel surfboard, neon signs, a bath with a built-in television and a ball pit
Bini says there are nods to Cara’s British roots throughout the property.
He adds: ‘I’ve always loved touring great British homes and gardens. In the garden, we put a tented pavilion which is a typical architectural folly you might see at Stowe or another great home. It’s a reimagined place for tea.
‘Cara is creatively bold and unafraid to be herself. Underneath it all, she’s a girl who is kind, sweet, sensitive.’
‘When she travels, Cara has her eyes wide open. She is sensitive and sophisticated. For me to be able to reflect that for her in the house and garden is a delight.
The multi-million-pound renovation is still ongoing – with the pair designing an ‘eco shell’ structure in the garden.
But there are limits – even to Cara’s imagination. At the end of the video tour, she jokes that the cameras are not allowed into her dungeon because ‘that would be showing all my secrets’.
‘I don’t have a dungeon,’ she deadpans. ‘That would be weird.’
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