As an unabashed lifestyle-blog stan, I would like to encourage more celebrities to follow actor and Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow’s example, and channel their wealth and status into stores that sell, to put it bluntly, all of the vaguely woo California stuff I love. I recently went to the store in Sag Harbor with my mom and she bought me a bag of the Martini Emotional Detox Bath Soak, which was deeply healing to the tween part of me that was denied the pink glitter bath bombs from Lush cosmetics that she so craved. (Has anyone made the connection between the former Lush kid and the current Goop girlie?)
Given my alternately worshipful and critical relationship with Goop, it’s natural that I would jump at the chance to see Paltrow’s actual home—which I did this week, as Paltrow listed her $30 million Los Angeles property. (It appears that she is planning to downsize now that her younger child, Moses, has graduated from high school.) The whole thing has a pleasingly Nancy Meyers-esque ring to it; I must assume that she’s going to Tuscany to garden with Stanley Tucci, or something equally fabulous. Paltrow bought the house 12 years ago, for $10 million, with her ex-husband, Chris Martin—he of “conscious uncoupling” fame.
With that real-estate business out of the way (and a cause to indulge my fixation with celebrity home decor), I also want to say that Paltrow’s place looks exactly as light-drenched and airy as you’d expect it to be. (And is that a beach view I spy? In Brentwood? Is that how Los Angeles is even arranged? Dear God, was that a personal pool?)
As much as I like to scorn the wellness-culture staples that I rabidly consume, from Erewhon to Moon Juice to the all-organic oil blend that’s now almost the only thing I use on my skin, I bear no ill will toward Paltrow for her good skin and fortune; indeed, I must give Paltrow credit for the Goop turkey-chili recipe that fed an extremely gastronomically disparate group of guests one Thanksgiving. So, when it comes to her and her various dwellings, it’s nothing but love.
