At home: Marilu Henner's 'treehouse' is one swinging spot

[Brian Damage]

LOS ANGELES — To say that Marilu Henner's sprawling, Spanish-style home in the Hollywood Hills has anything in common with a Tarzan-and-Jane hangout might be a stretch. Except maybe for one thing.
"It's almost like a treehouse," says the actress, 55.

A very big treehouse — 6,300 square feet, to be precise. And with views that would make Jane turn green with envy.

"On one side, I have the city view, and on the other side is the canyon view. It's the two sides of my personality, the city girl and the nature lover."

No argument there. The scenic vistas from the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room make it obvious that this is a house that offers the best of both worlds.


"As soon as I walked into this house, I said, 'This is my house,' " says The Celebrity Apprentice star, who bought the place 19 years ago from actor Pierce Brosnan and now shares it with her husband, Michael Brown, sons Nick, 13, and Joey, 12, and a boisterous German shepherd named Pablo.

"I always tease that I live with the three little pigs and the big, bad wolf," Henner says, curled up on a down-feather beige sofa covered with floral and striped throw pillows. "My two boys and Michael are not the neatest people, but there's a real feeling of family here."

Don't be misled by the stone tiles from an Italian monastery, the Greek columns or the great views. Henner's place is anything but palatial. "I wanted a comfortable house," she says. "I didn't want to feel like babies or dogs or kids can't come in here. So it's all very lived in."

That's especially evident in the cottage-style kitchen.

"I love to entertain," she says while proudly demonstrating a restaurant-quality six-burner stove. "I tested 300 recipes in here for my book Healthy Life Kitchen."

Rows of cookbooks line the oak bookcases built into the wall. Baskets hang from the wood-beamed ceilings, and a cozy couch is tucked next to a pantry brimming with healthful snacks.

"People can always drop over. I have a very open-door policy in terms of the kitchen," the former Taxi star says. "When I have a party, it's hard to get people out of the kitchen. We've had people fall asleep on that couch, and we just leave them there."

The self-confessed health nut, whose eighth book, Wear Your Life Well: Use What You Have to Get What You Want, arrives this month, doesn't seem to mind. The focus of her new self-help book pretty much sums up her own philosophy: "It's really about using yourself as a resource, taking your life, tweaking it a little bit, being able to identify what you want and using what you have to get there."

Henner has taken the same approach to decorating. "We couldn't figure out if we wanted a decorator," Henner says, striding across honey-colored hardwood floors into the master bedroom. "Then, all of the sudden, I saw this trunk at an outdoor sale on Melrose and I went, 'Oh my God, that's what I want the house to look like.' "

Today, the green wood trunk pulls double duty as a nightstand next to the couple's king-size bed.

"It was something I responded emotionally to, where I thought there was something Old World yet modern about it," she explains. "It all really started with the trunk, and we built from there."

As it turned out, however, neither the trunk nor the hotel-style king-size bed is the main conversation piece in the spacious room.

"You're not going to believe this," says Henner with a laugh, holding up a bedside lamp. "I have a Handel lamp I got from my friend Kenny Loggins when he was moving. Somebody said, 'Oh, you've got a Handel lamp? You know who sells them is Larry Flynt.' He had an antique store called Flynt Antiques, so we bought a bunch of them for the house."

Henner also decorated the bedroom with a sea-foam-green armchair for reading and a dark wood armoire for hiding clutter.

"It's very Italian," she says, then quickly adds with a grin: "The dog doesn't come in here. Michael has him very well-trained."

After all, no distractions is what first attracted the actress to her home.

"You really feel like you're above the city, and you've gotten away from the noise and the craziness," she says. "You almost feel like you're in a different country or something. Yet it's also really convenient to all of the studios."

Tarzan and Jane never had it so good.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifesty...terstitialskip

[MrRetro_08]

Nice view