Today, AD is welcomed by supermodel Paloma Elsesser to tour her Brooklyn townhouse. An illustrious modeling career means Elsesser is often jet-setting the globe, and as a result, her time at home has become her vacation time. Brooklyn was always where the supermodel wanted to end up setting up home, with Gregory Rockwell and Hester Hodde of Gregory Rockwell Interiors helping bring her oasis to life. Her home takes its cues from Milan design, mixing vintage and artisanal pieces, a style Elsesser has been drawn to since her many travels to Italy’s fashion capital. As the model settles into her dream home, it’s already been a place of great personal evolution–“I feel like I became a woman here,” she admits. “I learned to navigate so many things—a breakup, a contractor, having agency over my decisions and my money. I’m under no one else’s jurisdiction. It’s scary, but also very freeing.”
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I hear Bad Bunny.
00:05Hello AD, it's Paloma Alsasser, welcome to my home.
00:19Welcome to my living room.
00:21I grew up in a house that every single room had multi-functions.
00:25My mom lived in the living room, and me and my siblings would live in the bedroom or whatever
00:31it was.
00:32So I was very excited for this space to be very intentional.
00:36Brooklyn was always for me like the goal in many ways.
00:40Firstly, I wanted a multi-family home.
00:43I grew up in a multi-family home in Los Angeles.
00:46Second, was I also grew up in a historically black neighborhood, and I wanted to be surrounded
00:53by the environment that I grew up around.
00:56And third, I just didn't want to see people I worked with every single day of the week,
01:01every single hour.
01:04I didn't actually ask anyone else to work on this house with me besides Gregory Rockwell
01:10and Hester Hottie, who are iconic designers from Gregory Rockwell Interiors.
01:15We started off centered around a lot of Italian influence.
01:20So there's some old, some new, some contemporary, some different kind of multicultural layers.
01:25But ultimately what I love about specifically Milano design is that it's kind of this like
01:33kookiness that some people might not like, but it inserts such a profound joy while remaining
01:39really elegant and timeless.
01:41This little sofa is a little freaky thing.
01:44It's kind of like this like Jetson-y, space-age shape that we really loved, and then we wanted
01:50to cover it in this really elegant camel mohair.
01:53And I think it interacts perfectly with highlighting this beautiful artwork by my dear friend,
01:58Eric Mack.
01:59I think he does amazing, almost like sculptural, textile layering work.
02:04I love that this work is named after his grandmother, Mary.
02:08I too am a big fan of my grandmother.
02:11And I think it brought a familial and warmth to this room.
02:16So one of my favorite pieces in this room is this light fixture.
02:22It's literally called Lil' Luxury.
02:24It's by a German designer named Ingo Maurer.
02:27It perfectly hangs under the original crown molding of this house that was built in 1905.
02:33And it's this beautiful, warm, layered kind of structure.
02:37It felt like a really nice accent to its history, but also how it exists today.
02:43By the way, like I hate televisions, and I think that to offset that there is literally
02:49a television here, I wanted to be surrounded by all these beautiful, fun, amazing things
02:53like this tiny little dogan penis, and my particular favorite, an R. Crumb devil girl.
02:59Look.
03:13And welcome to my kitchen.
03:16I love this room.
03:17It brings me so much joy.
03:19So we're very inspired by Milanese and like historic Italian palazzos that often have
03:26modern kitchens kind of interjected into them.
03:29Like how do we like honor this like a gorgeous molding, but then put this shiny range.
03:35My kind of vision of this space was like being able to just kind of crowd around it.
03:41Maybe someone could be dancing on it.
03:43Maybe there's like spilled sauce or whatever it is.
03:46And that's happened a few times.
03:47Some say that green marble is a faux pas, but what I think is a faux pas is stripping
03:52a house of its history.
03:54So I really did want to honor the history of this room while providing it with some
04:01beautiful modernity.
04:03You know, this already existed.
04:05Cool.
04:06Let's put a pantry that's an aluminum lacquered space with almost these weird Italian perforated
04:12vents.
04:13Ultimately, what I also love most about this room is the color.
04:17It is this kind of citron yellowy green that truly brings so much levity and quiet, despite
04:27somebody being like, wow, this is a crazy color.
04:30I find it quite muted.
04:33This felt like this like genius idea that came into our heads when we were like sitting
04:36around talking about perfectly tucking in these like gorgeous walnut stools.
04:41It literally hit something within my spirit that I have long, long since sought to feel
04:48again.
04:49This is very special to me.
04:50It is my great, great, great grandmother.
04:53This picture is just so special.
04:54Can you believe that these things still are around?
04:57I think being surrounded by like the strength of like women and the people, my ancestors
05:03that come before me and the hair is just so beautiful and she's so beautiful and there's
05:08a stoicism in her eyes that I feel like reminds me the life that I get to live today is because
05:15of all the things that she did and I need to be reminded of that gratitude people.
05:20Let's go into my dining room.
05:27This is my wonderful dining room.
05:29This is actually my favorite room in the house.
05:33Early in the morning, light pours in here that straight up covers me with a sense of
05:38serenity that I rarely feel.
05:42I think the first thing that we got in here was this beautiful table.
05:46It is a vintage Sopsath table.
05:48I think the shape of this table speaks to the shape of this room.
05:52I often sit here and do like meetings or talk to friends and just like look out at the trees,
06:00look out at my neighbors.
06:01I waited literally seven months to get these Indian chick blinds, but we were obsessed
06:08with having them.
06:10There's just a conversation that's happening between this like kind of zany light fixture
06:14with blinds with like the light pouring in and then we're looking to this beautiful artwork
06:20by Taylor Simmons that adds the most perfect element in this room because there's always
06:26conversation, there's always things happening in this room, but there is deep contemplation
06:31that happens for me right, like literally right here.
06:34Even though, like I said, there's a lot of chat, there's also a lot of thinking and this
06:37work speaks exactly to that.
06:44Okay, well this is my hallway and then there's a little secret here, my little Harry Potter
06:48moment.
06:49We separated the floors of the house.
06:51This actually used to be a stair set and I thought, of course we need a tiny bathroom.
06:57This bathroom makes me like incredibly happy because many people don't know that it exists.
07:03You know, if you ever just need to quietly take a moment or sleep like Harry Potter did.
07:19Okay, welcome to my bedroom.
07:22One big theme that you're going to notice is I'm a big wall to wall girly.
07:27I lean into what some may consider a faux pas, I say faux yeah.
07:33I wanted this room to feel fucking serene.
07:36I've spent a lot of time in hotels and everyone goes, your room's like a hotel and I was like,
07:42that's on purpose.
07:44There's no television here, there are no clothes in here, it is just quiet.
07:47I can't believe I'm letting you guys in here even.
07:50This is my pride and joy, this beautiful rattan bed that we found on auction.
07:56Sometimes when the light kind of like pours in, you can see all the gorgeous reflection
08:00on these like swirls, I'm going to call it.
08:03Really, really fab.
08:04I think that sometimes people have these like living room setups in their room and they're
08:08like fake.
08:09Mine is not.
08:10I sit on this sofa constantly talking to my mom and my grandma, talking shit to my friends
08:14and my boyfriend.
08:15I also love this table so much.
08:17It's Roger Caprone, he's a French iconic designer.
08:21All of these impressions are done with real foliage and leaves, which brings me profound
08:26joy.
08:27So now we're going to the crown jewel.
08:29This is like quite literally where the magic happens for me.
08:32But first I want to call out this beautiful sculpture from my friend Alix Vernet.
08:37She works in all of these amazing metal castings.
08:40It's like so beautiful and stellar the way that she kind of calls on history and speaks
08:45to the modern woman.
08:47I very much so identify with the way that she sees the world and sees femininity and
08:53how to like honor who we are and who we've been and who we're becoming.
09:09Now this is my beloved bathroom.
09:13It makes my life heaven knowing that I get to shower and brush my teeth and pop my pimples
09:19in a room that looks like this.
09:22Italian marble, obviously.
09:24I grew up in a house with one and a half bathrooms where there was definitely not a stool or
09:29a seat.
09:30When I take a shower, I look and I sit on this bench and I think that like, I'm okay
09:35today.
09:36And I think that's really awesome.
09:43Some might say this is actually where the magic happens.
09:52It is more where my absolute meltdowns happen.
09:55This is my closet.
09:56This is like my dream closet.
09:58Like, dude, I have like lights in here for my shoes.
10:01This is my boyfriend's shoes.
10:03But when we thought about this room, we really had to create serenity, enclosure, and quiet.
10:12I think that I needed there to be a moment of like reprieve and breath.
10:18Sometimes I just plop down on this beautiful wall-to-wall carpeting and think, why do I
10:25have so many fucking clothes?
10:26But I still get to do it in a beautiful room.
10:29So yeah, this is like my gorgeous dressing room.
10:34There's another one, but we don't have to tell anybody.
10:37It's fine, it's fine, it's fine.
10:43This is my media room, which is absolutely insane to say in my mind.
10:54Like a media room.
10:55I don't even think I grew up with like a television.
10:59This room is obviously anchored with this gorgeous tiger sofa that we custom built and
11:07upholstered with this gorgeous Schumacher tiger print.
11:12I really do love chinoiserie and Chinese influence, however, many of the tables we were finding
11:17had like literal war scenes.
11:19So we decided that we would just custom one in this beautiful pond motif.
11:25Also this beautiful work is by Nathalie de Pasquier.
11:28She was like a seminal female figure in the Memphis Milano movement.
11:33And I think she doesn't only get the credit she deserves, it's very male dominated.
11:38This kooky strange room that again is littered with all these fun, strange things that I've
11:44collected in the world.
11:47These Tuareg beads that I brought in my carry on that everyone's like, oh, that's strange.
11:53But I love them so much.
11:54This is a gorgeous mask from Molly.
11:56These are just like kind of some of the books, but some days me and my boyfriend just have
12:01like a relaxed, like do nothing day is what we call it.
12:03We kind of spread out the books, eat pizza, do whatever.
12:06I know it sounds very like we just spread out books and eat pizza, but it's actually
12:10what we do.
12:11I'm not lying to you.
12:12But what I like about this room is that it's worldly.
12:15I think it really touches on all of my travels, all the things that make me happy.
12:20What I'm excited about is that it will continue to grow.
12:23I'll continue to put some new little prayer beads on my next travel and it won't feel
12:29out of place.
12:30It will just fit perfectly into this very worldly room.
12:36All right, AD, it was a pleasure having you at P.E.'s Playhouse, but now I must bid you
12:46farewell.
12:47All right.
12:48Love you.
12:49Bye.