Today AD is welcomed by Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Justin Mikita to tour their delightful home in Los Angeles. The Modern Family star and his husband decided to move to the leafy Encino hills of LA in a bid to create the perfect home for their evolving family life and aesthetic. Their vision was for a calm and cozy interior with plenty of space for the family to hang out. With the help of AD100’s Mandy Cheng, they turned a blank new build into a warm, inviting space full of soft colors and snug resting spots, including a king and a half sized bed. “Justin and I got the giggles one night seeing how many rolls it took to reach each other,” Ferguson recalls. “It was like three and a half!”
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Hi, AD. Welcome. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Hi, AD. I'm Jesse. I'm Justin. Welcome to our home in LA. Come on in.
00:10 So this is our dining room. It's one of the first spaces you see in the house.
00:29 See how I made it my own? We worked with Mandy Chang as our designer.
00:32 I saw my friends David and Emmy on the cover of Architectural Digest.
00:35 I was like, "Oh, I love this designer." We had just moved.
00:38 And so I thought we'd reach out to Mandy and ask her to work on this space with us.
00:42 This is a space that we have done a little bit of customization, mostly with the lighting fixtures.
00:47 There was a different lighting fixture above the table.
00:49 I love that we have a lot of different lighting fixtures.
00:52 We have a lot of different lighting fixtures.
00:54 I love these pieces because they're also really great for selfies when you're having a dinner party
00:59 because it's like this sort of concave thing.
01:01 So we have a lot of pictures of dinner parties from a weird angle.
01:05 We love them. This art. Talk about this, Justin.
01:07 Auntie Kalevi. He designed this for us, a custom design.
01:12 Justin thinks it looks like a chicken, which it kind of does.
01:15 It's sort of up for interpretation.
01:17 [music]
01:26 Welcome to the great room.
01:28 I'm going to do it then. If that's how you're going to do it, then I'm going to do it.
01:31 I'm going to have to do it all. If that's how you're going to do it, I'm going to have to do it all.
01:34 I understand. I'll just be your...
01:36 Welcome to the great room.
01:38 [laughter]
01:41 So this is our great room because it's great.
01:43 This is our great room because it's great.
01:45 This is the room with a piano.
01:47 Every great room has a piano, at least this one does.
01:49 There is a bar, so drinking sometimes happens.
01:52 It's interesting. When we bought this house,
01:54 the guy who built it, who's a wonderful architect, obviously,
01:57 but he's a straight guy, and he had two televisions above the bar.
02:02 And so we took those down and just put more booze up there.
02:06 We also added lighting fixtures.
02:09 This was designed by Lindsay Edelman.
02:11 It's custom, and I think it looks like a marble.
02:14 I think it looks like martini olives, so that's why I like it by the bar.
02:17 We love to host, sit around.
02:19 Some of our friends have crashed on this sofa,
02:21 but mostly it's a good indoor/outdoor space for hosting and hanging and drinking.
02:26 This is our cake topper from our wedding.
02:29 That's Leif, our firstborn child.
02:31 We don't have a lot of stuff from our wedding in the house,
02:34 just because that's not our vibe,
02:36 but this is actually our favorite picture from the wedding.
02:38 We got married in Soho.
02:40 There's Justin and me, our friends Eric and Andrew,
02:43 and then Padma Lakshmi, because, you know, she was there.
02:48 We are in the family room.
02:55 This is definitely one of the main spaces for us.
02:58 Breakfast and dinner and stuff happens.
03:01 The kitchen is behind you, and so we really spend a lot of our time hanging out in here.
03:06 In our home that we had before we had kids,
03:08 there was no space that was attached to the kitchen.
03:11 As a family now of four,
03:14 it's really wonderful to be able to have space that you could spill into
03:17 if the kids want to watch morning cartoons on Saturdays,
03:20 and you can have breakfast here together.
03:22 It feels very communal, and it's something I really didn't know I wanted until I had.
03:26 I really do love that this is a shared living and dining space.
03:30 It's really warm and cozy, and it's one of my favorite areas of the entire house.
03:34 This really interesting piece back here was actually in the house when it was staged,
03:38 and we looked at it initially, and it was one of the few pieces that we really wanted to hold on to.
03:42 I just think it's so unique and interesting and has so much texture.
03:45 I'm waiting for the day that my children start to climb it,
03:48 and that's going to be a day that we have to rethink that piece.
03:52 Or trim it.
03:53 Or just trim it back.
03:54 So this is obviously our bedroom.
04:02 Sorry, I'm so nervous. I'm so nervous. Our kitchen.
04:05 Some things that we did to customize this space,
04:07 and one of the things I actually resisted was the Roman clay on the stove hood.
04:12 I just didn't think it needed it.
04:14 I was like, it was black. I thought it was fine.
04:16 It sort of matched the accents of the room,
04:19 and Mandy was like, I just think it would really add some movement and some depth to the space,
04:24 and now I love it.
04:25 So that's why she's a designer, and I am not.
04:28 I know a lot of times when you watch these open-door tours,
04:32 there's a lot of staged food in the kitchen,
04:34 but these peppers actually all are from our garden.
04:37 This is actually ours. This is real.
04:39 Some of it.
04:40 The cakes are not real.
04:41 Well, they're real, but I did not do anything to make those,
04:44 but they are edible.
04:45 There's tons of traffic in here at all times.
04:47 Jesse is a great cook.
04:49 His cookbook is right over there on the ledge.
04:51 Oh, how did it end up right there?
04:53 That's interesting.
04:54 We also do a lot of family-style dinner parties in here.
04:58 In the morning, it's a lot of school lunches and making breakfast for the little ones.
05:04 It's definitely a space that gets a lot of wear and tear.
05:07 We love small powder rooms with fun wallpaper.
05:16 It seems to be a trend in our life.
05:18 It's actually the first wallpaper that went up in the house,
05:21 the first wallpaper that we told Mandy that we loved.
05:23 I like a dark, sexy powder room.
05:25 I like a powder room that also has a place to play music.
05:28 We have a Sonos in here.
05:31 When there's music in the house, you have--
05:33 Sometimes I also like to put on different music in the powder room
05:35 so when you shut the door, it's a different vibe,
05:37 like jungle sounds or something.
05:39 [Jesse laughs]
05:40 That's always kind of fun.
05:42 Anyway, I will be right out.
05:44 Okay, come on upstairs.
05:48 This is where they make it all fast,
05:50 where it speeds up and they go,
05:52 [Jesse imitates music]
05:55 My eyes are up here.
05:57 So this is what you call a landing, apparently.
06:04 This is another area where we have a TV,
06:06 Sunday morning cartoons.
06:08 This painting is by a queer artist named Marco Lorenzetto.
06:12 We have a couple of his pieces. We really love his work.
06:14 He made it for our last house in Los Feliz,
06:17 and we found a place for it.
06:18 So over here, this is our coffee station for the morning.
06:22 So here we have--this was a gift that I had made
06:25 for the cast of Modern Family for the final season.
06:29 I think Sofia thought they were cookies.
06:31 This is an art piece from the Human Rights Campaign auction,
06:35 and it's the YMCA.
06:37 The village people.
06:38 Oh, sorry.
06:39 The YMCA guy.
06:40 This is where our age shows.
06:42 [Jesse laughs]
06:43 Ten years. Ten years age difference.
06:45 Right there. That's an example.
06:46 [Jesse laughs]
06:47 Okay.
06:48 [upbeat music]
06:51 So this is technically a bedroom that we took over
06:53 to be our office space.
06:55 Justin has been producing a lot recently,
06:57 and so we wanted a space where he could work on,
07:00 you know, taking phone calls.
07:01 We wanted a shared space as well.
07:03 I started doing a podcast,
07:05 so I sometimes record pickups from this room.
07:08 Mandy had this great idea to build a desk against the wall,
07:12 so we maximized the center of the room.
07:14 You know, Justin's looking at the Tony Awards,
07:16 so I think that's where he wants to go next.
07:18 Go ahead.
07:19 Sure.
07:20 These are the Tonys.
07:22 Two for me, one for Jesse.
07:24 [Jesse laughs]
07:26 It's always a competition.
07:27 I think when we were in New York doing the Open Door,
07:29 you had one Tony Award.
07:30 That's right.
07:31 And I was saying I'd never even been nominated for one,
07:34 so now I have been nominated for one,
07:36 and I won it.
07:38 And so this is something that only, like,
07:39 five people watching will understand,
07:41 but we're halfway to an Audra McDonald,
07:43 'cause she has six.
07:44 We have some other cool pieces that we've collected.
07:46 We like to collect art from travel,
07:48 from our family.
07:49 This is a wrap present from Eric Stone Street.
07:51 When you're on a TV show,
07:52 you have these little marks on the floor
07:54 to tell you where to stop,
07:56 and every character had their own color.
07:58 And so Eric had us sign this wood panel,
08:01 and we didn't know what it was for,
08:02 and then at the end of it, he added the tape.
08:05 And so we've each basically signed
08:07 next to the color of our spike mark,
08:10 which I think is a really sweet, very unique--
08:13 we all got very emotional when he gave that to us.
08:15 [upbeat music]
08:24 Oh, it's weird that you're already in our bedroom.
08:26 Um, okay.
08:27 Hi.
08:28 What I love about this room is it's my--
08:31 I love sleeping.
08:33 I do, I love sleeping,
08:34 and this is a great room to sleep in.
08:35 It is a very large space,
08:38 and so Mandy said, you know,
08:40 there's this company that creates custom-sized beds,
08:43 and you can get as large as a double king.
08:47 And I said, well, that sounds crazy,
08:49 and sounds like something that, like--
08:50 I do like to know that he's in the room with me.
08:53 Like, I don't need him that far away.
08:55 So we settled on a king and a half,
08:57 which is great.
08:58 You know, you could put all the dogs in here,
08:59 all the kids, and, like, everyone has their own space.
09:02 And Mandy created the headboard and the side tables,
09:05 and what I do love about the fabric
09:07 that we chose for the headboard
09:09 is that it sort of echoes the paneling
09:12 that was already here,
09:13 the wood paneling in the room.
09:14 I love throw pillows.
09:16 I love a lot of them.
09:17 The thing is, at the end of the night,
09:19 Justin really won't deal with them.
09:22 So what he does--
09:24 - I get in around them.
09:25 - You get in around them,
09:26 and it's like I come to bed,
09:27 and it's like the set of Les Miserables
09:29 is on the middle of the bed,
09:30 like just a barricade.
09:31 This is for when you just want to take
09:34 the tiniest little nap.
09:35 Just--just--just like a three-minute nap.
09:38 [upbeat music]
09:42 - This is our primary bath.
09:44 We painted the walls pink.
09:46 It's clay.
09:47 - This was a room that we had some challenges with
09:49 because we wanted to make it feel like
09:51 it was a space that we created,
09:53 and it was--it's hard, I think,
09:54 for the bathroom to do that,
09:56 so, you know, we added these rugs.
09:58 We changed up the lighting fixture above the bathtub
10:00 to be this beautiful piece.
10:02 Added some plants.
10:03 - Cushion.
10:04 - A cushion.
10:05 Mandy was like, "Do you think you'll ever really sit here?"
10:07 I was like, "I don't know, maybe.
10:08 If there's a cushion, I will."
10:10 And so I've actually lied down here,
10:13 and then I just get that tiny little pillow
10:15 that I was talking about earlier,
10:16 and I just put it right here,
10:17 and I'll take a little 10-minute nap.
10:18 - Tiny nap. - Mm-hmm.
10:20 This patio is a zen patio,
10:23 but also because it's right off of the primary bedroom
10:27 with a fire pit,
10:28 and it has space for about 30 people.
10:32 We lovingly call it the orgy deck.
10:35 [laughter]
10:37 [upbeat music]
10:41 So this is a bonus room that we call the game room.
10:45 - Or pool house. - Or pool house.
10:47 I mean, we didn't have a great inspiration for this.
10:49 We just, like, kind of let Mandy go wild on here,
10:52 and she did suggest a big game of some sort down here.
10:56 I really advocated for the pinball machine,
10:59 which I really do love.
11:00 - I think it'll be more of a game room
11:02 when the kids are a little older,
11:03 but for now, it is more of a pool house.
11:06 I don't love being in the sun.
11:07 Jesse shouldn't be in the sun,
11:08 so people like us come sit in the air conditioning
11:12 while others are swimming.
11:13 - This, first of all, if you're upstairs
11:16 and you hear someone playing this game,
11:19 it sounds like, "My God, the house is falling down,"
11:21 because... [rattling]
11:23 I mean, that's a horrible sound.
11:25 And then you're like, "Oh, God, what's happened downstairs?"
11:27 They're like, "Oh, someone's just playing Connect 4."
11:29 But it is--I mean, this is not something
11:31 that's pleasant to listen to upstairs,
11:34 but sure is fun down here.
11:37 [rattling]
11:38 - I guess he's just playing on his own.
11:40 - I guess that's not how you play Connect 4, is it?
11:42 - No. [laughs]
11:43 But I'll just connect 4.
11:45 - Yeah, there you go.
11:46 [rattling]
11:47 [upbeat music]
11:51 - You're in the backyard.
11:52 Do we call it the backyard?
11:54 - I guess I would call this the garden,
11:56 and this was just all grass,
11:59 and one thing that I knew I wanted was a garden.
12:02 So my friend Reed Newman came in
12:05 and put in these garden boxes,
12:08 and he has this great passion fruit vine that he put in.
12:12 When we throw parties, we just open these doors.
12:15 People spill out into this area.
12:17 A lot of dinner parties have been had at this big table here.
12:19 - We have a couple of pieces out here that I've named.
12:24 I like to name a few statues.
12:27 This is Joe Jonas, and that's Peter.
12:30 Peter's from our last house.
12:32 He was the first thing that we bought in our last house
12:36 in a big, empty living room,
12:38 and now we've put him out to pasture.
12:40 - Yeah, but we like that he's out here.
12:42 [upbeat music]
12:48 So this is a piece that Mandy commissioned.
12:52 [laughs]
12:55 This is our pool.
12:57 We're hosting weekly toddler swim classes here right now,
13:00 so you're seeing a few remnants of pool toys,
13:05 and these umbrellas are beautiful.
13:07 They remind us of being at Lake Cuomo in Italy
13:10 at the Passalacqua Hotel.
13:12 - Oh, wow.
13:13 - That's right?
13:14 Like, doesn't it feel like we're there?
13:15 - Yeah, feels like you're there.
13:16 - Feels like you're there.
13:17 - I love being in the pool.
13:18 Justin, not so much, so he usually sits in the shade
13:21 or perches here and has a drink,
13:24 and then I will be in the pool.
13:26 - We have had a few pool parties,
13:28 and look forward to hosting kid pool parties
13:31 as they get older.
13:32 - I've always wanted chickens,
13:33 so Justin got this chicken coop
13:35 when we first bought this house,
13:38 and we still don't have chickens.
13:40 That's what it's gonna look like
13:41 when we eventually get the chickens,
13:43 and the chicken's name is Victoria Beckham,
13:46 and we're gonna get four more,
13:47 and I'm sure you can guess
13:48 what the other four names are gonna be.
13:50 - Mm-hmm. - So Spice Girls.
13:51 Okay, so anyway.
13:52 [upbeat music]
13:55 This is the--
13:57 What? What?
13:58 She's saying no.
13:59 [laughter]
14:00 If you think that AD just shows up and everything's ready--
14:04 - It's not true. - It's a lie.
14:06 So this is the deck that's off of our ADU,
14:10 which I always called a guest house,
14:12 but now I guess, like, people call it an ADU.
14:14 We added a fire pit over here.
14:16 We're not out in this area a lot,
14:17 but I wanted it to sort of feel like
14:19 an upscale campground,
14:20 and I think once we kind of landed on that as our theme,
14:23 it made sense, and this is perfect.
14:26 I love it.
14:27 [upbeat music]
14:30 - This is the ADU.
14:31 We added a lot of wallpaper and color to the space.
14:35 This was an art piece that was in the main entry of the home
14:40 when we toured it, and I loved it so much.
14:43 I thought it was really wild.
14:44 We have two small twin beds, and it's like a loft,
14:48 which I imagine will be really fun for the kids
14:50 when they're a little older and can climb the ladder.
14:52 - And I think we've done a really great job
14:54 of making it really eclectic.
14:56 It's also one of the--
14:57 it's the only space that we could find
14:59 to put all of our books.
15:00 Of course, I color-coordinate them,
15:02 'cause I'm crazy.
15:03 [laughs]
15:05 [upbeat music]
15:08 ♪ ♪
15:13 Bye, AD. Thanks so much for stopping by.
15:15 - Yeah. - We gotta get going, right?
15:17 - Yeah, we're going to Vegas to see Kylie.
15:19 - Oh, okay. Well, there you go.
15:21 Okay, bye. See you later.
15:23 [door slams]
15:24 That went well.
15:25 Who actually lives here, though?
15:27 you