And Diane Keaton has cosigned this endeavor. Ashley Tisdale’s new interior design business is called Frenshe interiors. 

Fans know Ashley Tisdale as an actress, singer, and dancer. But the talented 35-year-old took on a new passion during the pandemic. The new mom launched her interior design company, dubbed Frenshe Interiors (named after her popular lifestyle blog), and started posting photos of her projects in late February. What began as a personal home renovation project with her dad is now a full-fledged business, with the star recently selling her overhauled house in L.A.’s Los Feliz neighborhood for $5.78 million. For us, this pivot wasn’t a surprise. AD visited Tisdale at home in 2018 and saw how she worked with top designer Jake Arnold to create a space she described at the time as “laid-back chic with layers.” And in a February Instagram post, Tisdale revealed that she even took the Kelly Wearstler MasterClass.

While Tisdale is now taking some time off, we caught up with her just before she welcomed her baby girl, Jupiter. Here she reveals the inspiration behind the new business and its surprising celebrity fan.

Ashley Tisdale: I got into interior design over the years, working with some amazing people like Jake Arnold and Pierce & Ward. My first home was built from the ground up by my dad, Mike Tisdale, and I think that’s when I became super creative with homes. I’ve flipped every home I’ve owned. I don’t go into thinking that, but I love to renovate and be creative in my space.

How would you describe your style?

My personal style with interior design changes. I like to let each house speak to me, and I go from there. When helping others, I do the same. I want to let their vision come to life versus my own vision. I do love balancing masculinity with femininity. I don’t like to go too far each way.

What projects have you completed so far?

I designed the kitchen in my last house with my dad, and because of how great it came out, the owner who bought my last home reached out, and I designed her kitchen as well. It’s fun getting to work with my dad on other projects, not just my own. I’m also furnishing everything in our new home myself. Usually, I love to work with a designer, but I’ve gotten to the point where I really trust myself and my decisions.

Which designers inspire you?

I love Brigette Romanek—her mix of vintage and modern. Kelly Wearstler—she’s amazing with color and bringing the funk. Studio Shamshiri—they are so unique with everything they do. Mandy Graham—her approach to minimalism is sleek and beautiful.

Where do you source pieces?

I have so many favorite places: I love Chairish, 1st Dibs, Dekor, Mehrahban Rugs, Stahl and Band, And Garde shop.

What’s your favorite find?

I found this amazing 1960s midcentury Zenith record console cabinet. My husband has a great collection of records, so we love just to hang and listen to music.

What’s your goal for your business?

To have fun. This isn’t my full-time job. I’m an actress first. I just have a passion for interior design and will continue to help friends and clients when I have the chance. It’s really just something I can do that’s not in my direct business that’s a hobby.

How does it feel to have fans like Diane Keaton already? She commented on one of your posts!

Diane Keaton is why I got into interior design. She opened my eyes to being creative in other fields besides acting. I received her book years ago from a friend, and my dream goal is to own one of her homes that she designed!

The new mom and her husband, composer Christopher French, bought a Mediterranean-style Hollywood Hills home just two months ago

Ashley Tisdale has been staying busy with the real estate market: The actress, who purchased a new Mediterranean-style home in the Hollywood Hills in January, recently sold off her villa in L.A.’s Los Feliz neighborhood for $5.78 million, a substantial return given the $4.1 million she paid for it in 2019. The 4,214-square-foot home has undergone significant changes under Tisdale’s ownership, which makes sense, given that, as she told Architectural Digest in 2018, she has an eye for interior design thanks to her father, who worked as a contractor all throughout her childhood. “I grew up with him building all these amazing houses—including Darren Star’s home in Los Angeles—and I missed working together,” she said at the time.

Tisdale, who recently launched her own interior design business, updated the four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom Los Feliz residence with new European oak floors and white subway tile backsplash in the kitchen but kept many of the pad’s original details, including its leaded glass windows and some of the lighting fixtures. One of the home’s most unique features is a fireplace built into a breakfast nook adjacent to the kitchen. “I never thought how nice it is to have a fireplace in your kitchen,” she captioned an Instagram photo a few months back. “Old homes with new charm.”

Much of the property’s charm also lies in the unique color schemes and patterns throughout: a deep teal for the dining room, a denim blue for one of the bathrooms, intricately patterned wallpaper for the front foyer. The main suite features a private covered balcony and a vintage-style bathroom with white marble floors. Out back, there’s a spacious deck, a lounge space with a built-in grill, and a two-story guest house situated next to a large rectangular pool. Tisdale and her husband, composer Christopher French, recently welcomed their first daughter, Jupiter.

Ashley Tisdale made a significant profit on the sale of this home. Photo by Daniel Dahler for Sotheby’s International Realty. Article from Architectural Digest.

The stones are called PV Stones “Palos Verdes”. They came out of mine near Los Angeles and were very fashionable back in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. The mine has since dried up and been closed for 15+ years. So the only stones available for this type of work are rare and difficult to find. These stones we saved in the demolition phase of the job and are now repurposing them into the old chimney location. Thankfully we did that at the outset of this job or we would have had a very difficult time finding these stones that match like this. We are reintegrating the pattern and depth of the stone veneer to look seamless and original. We will do a few aesthetic things to help the stone and the grout surrounding it look like it was all installed at the same time. It is a very slow process to chip and cut and re-emulate the pattern and joints.

We took out a rotted chimney and reframed behind, waterproofed, paper and lathed the wall. We then added angle iron supports and bolted it to the studs. Then we are rebuilding the pattern and re-setting the stones on the house.

Dear Mike,

Words cannot express the gratitude I feel for you in facilitating the creation of my lovely home. There is not a day that goes by when I walk through these rooms with a smile of appreciation, and you are a huge, huge part of that. I have thoroughly enjoyed our times together, our collaboration, our ideas, and the smooth execution of it all. Thank you.

For your attention to all the little details, they made all the difference. You’re the best Mike, you’ve truly given me a gift that will outlive us both, and that’s awesome. If you ever need a good word, please feel free to call me

Until then… God Bless and much love,
Lorraine

PS: This is a terrific restaurant, take your girl out on me

Our Project Manager, Zachary Beer, participates in a Networking Event organized by Luxe Magazine at Vintage Timberworks Temecula’s location

Article courtesy of Vintage Timberworks

A Midcentury architectural house in Los Angeles built for the guitarist for 1960s rock group The Doors has hit the market for $13.99 million after a gut renovation.

Robby Krieger, 72, commissioned the single-story hexagonal mansion in Bel Air in the late 1960s. He lived there with his family though the 1970s, when it served as a watering hole for the rock ‘n’ roll scene of the time. The unusual property, which has no right angles, hit the market on Thursday following a two-year restoration that put a contemporary spin on its ’70s style.

Despite its celebrity cache, the home had fallen into disrepair and was on the brink of demise when current owner Adam Bold, founder of private equity firm Superbrands, toured the property in 2016, he said.

The home was stripped to the studs and renderings of a “two-story, square mcmansion” were on display, Mr. Bold said. “They were pitching it as a development opportunity.”

“I thought it would be a shame because it’s such an architectural treasure,” he said. Mr. Bold ended up buying the property for $5.2 million, according to property records.

His vision was to restore the home to a 1970s style that would still appeal to modern buyers.

He kept one of the last remaining interior details from Mr. Krieger’s time: a Brutalist-style frieze the rocker commissioned of the band, which hangs over a 10-foot-wide fireplace.

He’s also retained the original blue-tile roof, which “looks like Spanish tile but is actually from Japan,” Mr. Bold said. “It’s very ’70s but now retro cool.”

Diego Monchamp, an interior designer with Brown Design Group, said it’s one of the most unusual Midcentury homes on the market.

“What I’m seeing on the market are boxes on top of boxes that are askew a little. They are all a little bit the same,” said Mr. Monchamp, who handled the redesign. “It’s not like that.”

Mr. Krieger commissioned the home from local architect Matthew Leizer, who also designed the Santa Monica Library, and built the musician’s Bel Air home with no right angles.

The interior architect honored the 1970s theme by laying down textural terrazzo flooring. “It’s a material you would have seen in airports and banks and very high-end homes of that era,” Mr. Monchamp said.

They also used unfinished solid maple for all of the wood detail, including the kitchen cabinetry, and relaid panels of cork in the ceiling to help with the harsh acoustics of the open floor plan. Glass walls cover the exterior of the home and those facing the interior courtyard.

Mr. Bold learned that Mr. Krieger wasn’t the only rocker to live at the house, which was also home in the 1990s to Fred Durst, lead singer of Limp Bizkit.

“That was back when he was dating Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera,” Mr. Bold said. (Both singers have denied having relationships with Mr. Durst.)

The privacy celebrities crave has been part of the lure of the property, which spans near one-and-a-half acres, said Sacha Radford, who is listing the home for The Agency.

“There’s total privacy all the way around the lot,” she said.

The next owner will also get the pleasure of owning a home that was frequented by all the great musicians of the 1970s or “anybody who was anybody,” Mr. Bold said. “I wish the walls had cameras.”

BY BECKIE STRUM
https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/hexagonal-mansion-designed-for-the-doors-guitarist-gets-retro-makeover-96137