My Favorite Room: Jillian Michaels - Los Angeles Times
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My Favorite Room: Jillian Michaels

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Jillian Michaels learned a hard lesson once she became a parent.

“Once you have kids, nothing is yours anymore,” the fitness guru said. “It’s completely infiltrated.”

Which means toys — Lego pieces in particular — are usually scattered around the 4,300-square-foot Malibu beach house that she shares with her partner, Heidi Rhoades, and their two children, 7-year-old Lukensia and 5-year-old Phoenix.

But Michaels, 43, has carved out a refuge in her home office, which is blissfully Lego-free.

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“This room is mine — it’s on the water, it’s extremely tranquil and grounding,” she said. “It’s where I get all of my work done.”

Michaels — former host of the NBC weight-loss show “The Biggest Loser” and star of the E! reality show “Just Jillian” — designs the Impact by Jillian Michaels activewear line and runs an eponymous fitness and nutrition app. She is offering a July 8 workout at the Shrine auditorium to help benefit the Stand Up To Cancer charity.

What was your design philosophy with your office?

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The room is reflective of how I approach everything. I like things clean, orderly and organized — otherwise I can’t function. The room is very functional — it’s got style, but it’s not overly pretentious or obnoxious, which is something I really try to avoid.

How did you decorate it?

There’s a midcentury desk, a Kelly Wearstler leather chair, a midcentury credenza — a custom-made piece that the TV comes out of — a giant Massimo Vitali photograph of a beach rave in Brazil. This room has all of my stuff in it — my books, my antiques, my trinkets.

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Antiques? What kind?

I love old things. I just feel like they have a life of their own — it’s fun to imagine what they were and who owned them. I have old religious texts, hourglasses, binoculars.

Most unusual item?

There’s this sword that I got in Thailand that’s not that impressive at first glance. It’s a couple hundred years old. Ganesh is on the handle. It just blows my mind thinking about it — who was the owner, where did they get this, did they have it made for them?

Where do you find these things?

We travel a lot. We spend hours digging through antique shops. On one trip — I was in Austria for the Special Olympics — I bought a signet ring for my daughter and a pocket watch from 1812 for my son. In Amsterdam, I bought an old grandfather clock, but it’s in the farmhouse at the moment because my designer wouldn’t allow it in the beach house.

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This designer sounds potentially intense.

Oh, it’s Colin Dusenbury [of Dusenbury Design]. He’s a very fabulous gay man with exquisite taste — he usually does crazy houses for, like, Russian oligarchs.

What’s the client-designer relationship like?

He’s actually very collaborative and tolerant. He just gets [angry] whenever I go away and come back with a 7-foot Ganesha statue from India he has to find room for. He’ll fight with me and try to open my mind about things. But we both get mutual kill power.

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