Wednesday 10 April 2013

Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres's Ranch

Loved reading and drooling over all the pics of this months Elle Decor feature home Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres's Ranch.  Here's some pics and exerts from the article:

 In 2009, the couple bought a property that De Rossi believed would keep DeGeneres occupied for some time: a ranch north of Los Angeles with multiple structures, including eight cabins. "I thought it might take Ellen five years to finish the project," De Rossi says, "and she did it in one. It was shocking!"
 


 Situated in tony Hidden Valley, the 26-acre property was the estate of actor William Powell in the 1920s. Later it became a monastery, then a rehab center. DeGeneres thinks part of the film Seabiscuit was shot there. "When we bought the place, it was a professional horse facility," she recalls. "But it was really not taken care of." Nonetheless, both women were immediately seduced by the landscape. The property abuts the Santa Monica Mountains and features giant boulders and oak groves. There are roaming deer, coyotes, mountain lions, and a number of feral cats that the two more or less adopted.
 



De Rossi, who was born in Australia and moved to the U.S. in the 1990s to pursue acting, has her own on-site passion: riding horses. She has two horses here, a Hanoverian called Maeby—named for the daughter of her character on Arrested Development—and a Dutch Warmblood called Mcy (pronounced Macy). "But she looks like a cow," De Rossi says, "so we call her Moo."

Don't think she has the stables to herself, however. "There are times I'll come to the barn and see a beautiful piece of early American furniture where my horses get groomed," De Rossi says. "I have to explain to Ellen that I need to fit a horse in there." DeGeneres did manage to sequester one stall and turn it into an elegant sitting room. It was there that De Rossi wrote part of her 2010 memoir, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain.



How long the couple will stay in Hidden Valley is anybody's guess, given DeGeneres's penchant for picking up and decorating anew, but there's a good chance that this place may be for keeps. De Rossi seems particularly attached to it (both her mother and her brother's family live nearby). "If I find something else and can see having a new project, I'm open to that," DeGeneres says. "But I'd have to fight Portia, because this is her dream property. This we may just hold on to."

All photo's and text sourced from Elle Decor Website

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