Brooklyn Decker featuring the Mara Dresser

Brooklyn Decker - and it’s given, it’s not a stage name, it’s my real name.

Actor/Design Enthusiast

I live in a 1960s house in a historic neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina with my husband, Andy, our son Hank, who is 8, and daughter Stevie, who is 6. We also have an English bulldog named Bob, after Bob Costas, and two cats named Ethel and Ruby.

My first trip to New York City was on my 16^th birthday. I had started modeling while in high school, and I would go up during school breaks to work. New York was an explosion of culture that I had not been exposed to and going back and forth while in high school was a funny exchange of lives and cultures. I feel that everyone should live in New York City at one point in their lives if they can because it is such a gift.

I lived in Austin for about ten years before moving back to North Carolina and while I'm not aligned with what is happening in Texas today, living in Austin the mid-2000s was pretty cool. It felt like a renegade town, very rebellious and interesting and with its very own clear identity.

And in Paris, you're walking on cobblestones that are older than New York City. There is a level of preservation of architecture that exists there that doesn't exist here. I think in America we have a much more disposable relationship with buildings and furniture. In Europe people preserve. History is important. Patina is important. Those are things that you really have to hunt for here in the States, things that feel different and special and I appreciate that.

Let’s see… I love Carl Axel Acking and Paolo Buffa, two early to mid-century furniture makers. And North Carolina, where I grew up, used to be the furniture hub of the country until everything sort of left North Carolina and left the States.

That's true - yes. My granddad is a carpenter. My dad carves and makes furniture. My brother made our dining room table. This isn't what they do full-time, this is just in their blood. So even though I wasn’t exposed to big cities until later, I was exposed to very beautiful furniture.

I admire people who test the boundaries of materiality. Orior does it so well with stone and bronze and brass and wood -- testing the limits and seeing how far they can push these materials to be fresh.

Making memories with my nearest and dearest – my family, kids, animals. Also researching furniture makers of our past and interior designers of past and present. I do spend a lot of time doing that. I think anyone who lives a nomadic lifestyle has a deep appreciation for home. If I am stressed, the first thing I do is go to 1st Dibs and browse couches and that will calm me down.

I wish I made more time for my kids, even though I make a ton of time for them. I feel your love for your family and friends is never fulfilled because you always want more and you want to give more. I wish I made more time for reading. I wish I made more time to enjoy live music. I wish I made more time for travel.

Nothing can replace the spirit of a person that goes into something they made. It's important because I think creative productivity is the secret to happiness for everyone. I think making things, whether cooking a great meal or my mom growing a whole vegetable garden in our yard, is a creative productive output. I think that is the secret to happiness for everyone.

A clay pinch pot that I made for my mom for Mother's Day while in elementary school, and she had it forever. It sat on top of the refrigerator. Maybe I remember it not because it is the first thing I made, but because it is the first thing I made that I saw that was so appreciated by someone I loved.

I love making cocktails, and if you like a tequila-based drink, the Division Bell is a really good tequila drink for the winter. Some people use mezcal but I use tequila, Aperol, lime, a splash of grapefruit and a Luxardo.

I also like design, and am designing a house for very close friends of mine, as a hobby. I hand drew their plaster fireplace surround which is going in next week. While I am not physically upholstering things myself, and I am not physically laying tile, and I am not physically applying plaster, I do feel like there is a lot of creative energy that goes into creating a space. It has really been delightful. So that's creating but I am not making it with my hands, per se.

I loved the color and it was one of their more delicate pieces. There was a masculinity to the materiality of the wood and leather and stone, but it had sort of a delicate feminine feel in its silhouette, and I really liked the contrast in that piece.

Also, you have four different materials in one piece of furniture: the outside is oak, there’s a blue-ish leather on the outside, all drawers are lined in the same leather, there is a yellow marble on top, and it has brass accents. It’s beautiful.

It lives in our bedroom, which felt like the perfect place for it to live. I liked that it was functional and that it had a masculine look but with a more feminine, delicate shape.

It is saucy. It's got little drawers, and they’re a little shallow, so it is meant for smaller things. You might hide a little joint or your most beautiful lipstick. It is made to carry the really special hidden things in our life, like hiding secrets in the best way.