If you're a celebrity or Saudi prince looking to make your mark on the L.A. mansion scene, there's only one architect you need to know: professional ostentatious castle-maker Richard Landry. He's the designer of Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady's Arch Digest-pedigreed SoCal chateau and in-progress Massachusetts castle, the mastermind behind L.A.'s contemporary palace whispering a $150M ask, the creator of Wayne Gretsky's manse, and, you know, a four-time AD100 architect. His most recent accomplishment, however, is the 30,000-square-foot (that's nearly double the size of Bündchen and Brady's spread) palace built for actor Mark Wahlberg. In light of news that, after two years, construction on the project is "in the homestretch," The Hollywood Reporter has gathered some intel about the Wahlberg property, which—get this—Landry insists "isn't gratuitously grand," despite its putting green and "2,200-square-foot loggia." Below, the nine best tidbits from THR's Landry interview:
9. Wahlberg's home will boast "a 2,200-square-foot loggia with coffered ceilings, limestone floors and a fireplace." There will be draperies, but no glass windows.
8."My goal always has to go with finding the right proportions. It is not about building bigger and bigger homes," says Landry.
7. Landry also says: "There are no ginormous rooms here—there's no ballroom, no bowling alley, no indoor basketball court. I've done most of those kinds of things in other projects, but here it's really a good traditional family house with no craziness to it."
to which THR counters:
6. "In this case, the traditional family house includes a home theater, wine cellar, large-scale gym, a double-height, wood-paneled library, a putting green and a large, rock-scaped pool with a waterfall and diving rock."
5. A little Landry background: "The architect is building a 32,000-square-foot contemporary in Bahrain, a 200,000-square-foot French-style single-family home near Shanghai and a 250,000-square-foot, eight-building, hypermodern compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia."
4. About his housing subdivision in Qingdao, China, a tract of 40 homes that each measure 25,000 square feet, Landry told THR: "For all of these, I'll be using the same materials I use here—French limestone, bronze windows, Vermont slate. Those are the kinds of products going into these homes."
3. In fact: "Add up all of his current residential projects in China alone, and the grand total comes to 8 million square feet of Landry-fied territory."
2."And I never copy myself," Landry told THR. "Nobody else has a Gisele house, even if they wanted it."
Oh, and the best quote of all:
1. "I am just as passionate about smaller projects, and we are still doing many of them ... We just finished a 4,000-square-foot guest cottage in Malibu. It was just a little folly, and that is just as fun for me."
· Hot Hollywood Architect Finishes Mark Wahlberg's 30,000-Square-Foot Beverly Hills French Manor [Hollywood Reporter via Curbed LA]
· All Richard Landry posts [Curbed National]
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