June 2021 Editor's Letter

“If the world around you isn’t in order, it’s hard to get your brain in order. When we’re in our home, the world just makes sense.” —Ashton Kutcher

It took a bit of coaxing to persuade our cover couple, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, to open the doors of their sustainable, solar-powered, cornfield-planted, six-acre Los Angeles property—cutely dubbed KuKu Farms—to AD. But once the determinedly private pair agreed, they really opened up about their painstaking process to West Coast Editor Mayer Rus, who describes them as “design-obsessed.” For their five-year passion project, a home that Kutcher imagined would “look like an old barn, something that had been here for decades, but also feel modern and relevant,” the Hollywood power duo chose two AD100 talents: architect Howard Backen and interior designer Vicky Charles.

“Building a house from the ground up is no small thing. This was either going to make us or break us,” comments Kunis. Suffice to say, the contemporary farmhouse, a majestic but warm marvel of reclaimed wood, board-form concrete, and soaring swathes of glass, does not disappoint. For an entirely different take on a new build, AD photographed a grand, traditional mansion outside Cleveland, created by AD100 architect Peter Pennoyer and decorated by AD100 designers Miles Redd and David Kaihoi of Redd Kaihoi— it is a triumph of formality that is still a lot of fun.

The entire issue is, in fact, a celebration of American style, with stops at an eclectic family home in the bucolic Berkshires; an elegant equestrian estate in Westchester County, New York, with interiors conceived by AD100 designer Sheila Bridges; and finally a town house in New York City where yet another set of AD100 stars, designer Julie Hillman and architect Steven Harris, meld timeless classicism with contemporary cool. Made in the USA: going strong and looking better than ever!

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest