There’s a Lily Allen song that perfectly describes the design ethos behind the decor ideals of her new Brooklyn home, but the lyrics are too rude to reproduce here.
You can judge the F…. You singer’s decor yourself as Allen has thrown open doors of the four-storey mansion she shares with Stranger Things and Marvel star David Harbour to Architectural Digest, part of the magazine’s celebrity home tour feature, Open Door.
What the tour video revealed was an interior that is not afraid to chuck the design rules out the window, and flip them the bird as they go.
From the fully carpeted bathroom, to the entirely pink bedroom without windows to the high gloss paint in the downstairs corridor – there doesn’t seem to be an accepted design rule their decorator Billy Cotton didn’t wilfully break – and yet it’s all absolutely gorgeous.
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Harbour and his enormous thespian personality has done one of these AD tours before, showing the mag around his delightful bijou Lower East side loft in 2022.
Architectural Digest/screen grab
Harbour and Allen welcome Architectural Digest to their Brooklyn home.
The new video confirms he’s still a decor-head, as he describes the choices the couple have made and why, and admits to banning himself from entering the Zuber wallpaper shop as he’ll spend hours looking through their catalogue and wanting all the wallpapers even if they don’t fit the house.
He takes point on most of the tour, and to be fair, he’s probably the more famous of this celebrity duo, Stateside at least.
But it’s clear Allen has had final say on a lot of the home’s design flourishes – starting with the “plain English kitchen” in off-whites, with a buff accent. Allen has shared images from around the home on Instagram in the past.
The home was designed by Billy Cotton, one of AD’s top 100 interior designers, who Harbour jokingly refers to as “budget unconscious”.
The design makes the most of the period building’s original features, including ceiling roses and chandeliers, but also has some modern quirks
Throughout the clip, Harbour and Allen gently tease one another, finish each other’s sentences, and generally act like a cute couple who not only love one another, but really like each other too. Often Allen will lay out a joke or anecdote for Harbour to finish, and it’s very sweet. It’s also hard to tell when Harbour’s joking or being straight up.
So when he says the one thing he really wanted in the home after a coffee station is swan taps and a giant space fridge in the bathroom, it’s hard to know if he means it.
“The kitchen was all me, but here in the bathroom, David really let himself go,” says Allen.
“When I had apartments in New York City, I just had bathrooms where there was a toilet and a shower… now, I have a room, where you can have a bath, or sit, or brush your teeth, or you can do whatever you want.”
The bathroom is fully carpeted (Pierre Frey), with clashing romantic florals on the walls (Zuber, again). It almost looks like an old-fashioned ladies waiting room from a 19th century department store, with its pink velvet armchairs, ornate fireplace and black slate-topped commodes.
Architectural Digest/screen grab
David Harbour shows off his ‘refrigerator from space’, in the unique bathroom of the Brooklyn, New York, home he shares with Lily Allen.
Up in the bedroom, things get weirder when Harbour explains the bedroom – totally pink, with a framed pink flamingo rug above the bed, a gift from Allen’s dad, British actor and comic Keith Allen – has no windows because he likes to sleep in. It does have a fantastic pair of pink pocket doors, however.
By the time we’re downstairs in the high gloss corridor that leads to the media room, all understanding of the limits you can push good interior design to have been re-wired. It’s a stunning house that shouldn’t work, but totally does.
Allen and Harbour were married in September 2020, in Las Vegas at the Graceland Wedding chapel. There had been engagement rumours for a year before, with Allen once teasing Harbour over the gift of a ring because it wasn’t a wedding ring.
The then 35-year-old British popstar and 45-year-old movie star were first spotted out together in January, 2019, when they attended a BAFTA function together. They didn’t go “Instagram official” until October that year, when Harbour posted a picture of them dressed as a Disney prince and princess.
Allen has two daughters from her first marriage to builder Sam Cooper, Ethel, 10, and Marnie, nine.
Architectural Digest regularly features celebrity homes giving an unprecidented sneak peek into how the rich and famous live.
