Set in Stone

Following a chance meeting with stellar interior designer, Douglas Truesdale, Sharon Stone began renovating her luxe home.

Stone purchased the property quarter of a century ago, following her rise to fame in Basic Instinct. At the time, she was living in a relatively modest home without much in the way of security. “All of a sudden, there were crazy stalkers trying to get into my house. The police were there all the time, until they finally had enough,” she explains. “They told me to pack a suitcase because they were taking me to a hotel. I had to find a new home that had proper gates.”

Although the lavish pile looks reminiscent of a home that might have belonged to a starlet from Hollywood’s Golden Age, the current house was still in construction when Stone acquired it, enabling the actress to put her own stamp on the architecture. “I worked with a château restorer to give the property texture and a sense of history. We installed an antique-tile floor from Agra in the powder room off the foyer and brought in the dining-room floor from a château in Switzerland. I also put in the moldings, mantels, and other architectural details that are so essential to the integrity of the space,” Stone recounts.

In this latest renovation, Truesdale and his client focused on everything from paint colours and fabrics to room layouts. On the main floor, they added a partial wall with mirrored pocket doors to divide the cavernous living room into two distinct areas. Now Stone can entertain friends on the more formal side of the space while her three sons—Roan, Laird, and Quinn—watch television and play games on the other. She and Truesdale also completely rebuilt the kitchen and revitalized the dining room with cool contemporary lights by Moooi and a hair-on-hide rug the colour of a traffic cone.

The stair hall features a Julie Neill Designs chandelier, an antique secretary bookcase, and a Mimmo Paladino painting.

“Sharon is an artist with a capital A. Whether it’s acting or photography or decorating, she always brings incredible energy and creativity to the table,” Truesdale notes. “She’s been all over the world—palaces, yachts, the White House, you name it. She’s a sponge of visual information, and she can tap into all of it when we’re designing.”

Renovating a home takes you on a weird journey,” Stone says. “Unexpected things happen along the way, and you adapt.

Stone is quick to return the compliment. “Douglas has great instincts. It’s not that we have the same taste, but we work incredibly well together. We’re always challenging each other,” she says.

In the master suite, glamour and comfort go hand in hand, silk rugs, chairs covered in shaggy white Mongolian lamb hides, linen sofa upholstery that shimmers like burnished metal, gilded moldings, and a seriously sybaritic bathroom—all of it seems tailor-made for a Tinseltown legend.

In the end, the renovation went so swimmingly that Truesdale and Stone teamed up again to help a couple of the actress’s friends with their own home-design projects. Although Stone has no plans to let her SAG card lapse anytime soon, decorating has proven to be a welcome diversion from the Hollywood grind. “Douglas and I were born collaborators. We have a blast together,” she enthuses. “We like to call ourselves the Wonder Twins.”