Inside Lenny Kravitz’s Regal Paris Home

AD, welcome to Hotel de Roxie.

Come on in.

[bright music]

Well, first of all, this place is called Hotel de Roxie.

It's named after my mother,

because it was her dream to come live in Paris.

She wanted to retire after doing 11 seasons

of The Jeffersons, and she never got to do it.

So I'm doing it for both of us,

and this place is a real gift.

I've been in this house for 22 years now,

but I've been in Paris my whole career.

When my first album Let Love Rule came out in '89,

they weren't quite sure how to market me in America

because I didn't fit in a box,

so they sent me to Paris.

It's my favorite city in the world.

It's just an inspiring place culturally,

music, art, fashion, cuisine, it's got it all.

I love Paris, but I love this house.

And I walked through the front door into this entry,

and I knew I was at home.

This place was made to make music in.

It's got the most beautiful reverb.

[Lenny clapping]

As you can hear.

I got the opportunity to work with Steinway

and I designed this grand piano a few years ago,

and it's a piece that I'm really proud of.

I wanted to use an African form for the piano

and blend the two styles of European design

and African design,

and I designed it for this space.

The legs, as you can see, are hand carved

and all of the designs started

with the design of the legs.

And all of the bronze work is all hand done,

and the pedals are the same.

This house continually pays tribute to my ancestors.

And as you'll see, as we walk through the house,

there's photographs of them everywhere.

All of this photography tells a story throughout the house

through black history, American and African.

It's all African.

But that's Gordon Parks,

who's one of my favorite photographers and artists.

And I had the pleasure of

getting to know him before he passed.

And this photograph is taken by Weegee.

It reminded me of my family, of my grandparents

when they used to take me out in New York City.

And you would get dressed,

you'd put on, as we would say, your Sunday best,

and go out on to town.

[bright music]

This is the [indistinct],

it's called the Roxie Room.

And it's dedicated to my mother

as she was a love of my life.

I was a mama's boy.

I found a bunch of photographs

that my father had taken of my mother in the late '60s

and got them framed

by the same framer that does

a lot of framing for the Louvre.

I just wanted to have a room

where I was surrounded by her image.

This is my favorite photograph of my mother.

It's just a moment, and I love the composition,

the hat, the look on her face.

And that photograph,

one of the major ways that I remember her is

in the late '60s she would read poetry in Central Park,

and this guy, he used to play the guitar,

and she would sit like that

and read Langston Hughes and other poets.

It's one of the deepest impressions I have of her.

For me, soul is the most essential element,

putting yourself into it, whatever your soul is.

You know, people ask, well, how do you define your design?

I call it soulful elegance.

You know, it's being elegant, sophisticated,

but with soul,

with your heart, with your spirit.

Because design and elegance without that feeling

is just designer names and stuff.

But when you're collecting

and it really reflects who you are,

what you are, where you've been, it's beautiful.

Whatever your style is,

just being authentic to who you are.

We all have to tell our story.

[bright music]

This is the Grand [indistinct]

and this is where I receive folks.

This is where we hang out.

We all sit around.

I sit on the floor and I play music.

It's got a lot of art in here that I love.

The whole room is built around Muhammad Ali,

his legacy and his message captured by Andy Warhol.

I love Andy Warhol, but I love Muhammad Ali.

And yes, he was the greatest boxer.

But what I love about Muhammad Ali

is the humanitarian work, the civil rights work.

He was a freedom fighter, and that is so important.

If you think about the things he was saying

at that time in the '60s,

he said some very challenging things,

but he was so intelligent

and he had a great wit and strength,

and he knew how to balance that all together.

This room is about that.

[bright music]

Another thing that I love about this room

is this is the first chandelier that I designed,

that Kravitz Design did.

This chandelier was made for Swarovski,

and it was in one of the art fairs years ago,

it's called the Hotel De Roxie.

Some of the articles in here

that are giving me so much vibe

are these African sculptures

that I got from Church Boutique,

which is one of my favorite boutiques in the world.

It's run by my good friend Rodney Burns,

and he has curated quite a few things in the house.

Yeah, these chairs were done by Kravitz Design

many, many years ago.

I love when you do something years ago

and you have no idea where they're gonna end up,

but when they end up where they are

it looks like they were designed for that space.

At the end of the day, it's all about comfort.

Creating an ambiance where you can feel relaxed,

a space that opens communication,

the lines, the silhouettes,

the fabrics, the lighting, the art, you know, all of it.

It all matters,

but at the end of the day if the room is not comfortable,

then it's not working.

[bright music]

This is the dining room.

I like to have dinner parties

and invite interesting people

from all different backgrounds

to sit and enjoy a meal and conversation.

This room is centered around this photograph

of my grandfather who was the head of the family,

and such an inspirational figure to me.

This photograph was taken by [indistinct]

years ago in Nassau Bahamas.

I love that he's here looking over the table,

still blessing everyone who comes in here.

I feel his presence,

and I love seeing him every day.

This room's all about the nighttime.

I never have lights on very bright.

People come in here and they think it's quite dark,

so the lights are always on very dimly,

and it just feels rich, and warm, and vibey,

and that's the way I like it.

This is by one of my favorite artists

in the furniture world.

I have several pieces of his,

and I've been collecting him for a long time.

This is Paul Evans.

He was an absolutely incredible artist,

and I'm just drawn to his work.

How brutal, how elegant.

This table is designed by Karl Springer,

and I've had this for many years.

I love it, the lacquer is just worn,

it's got a lot of character.

These are Africa chairs.

Scarpa had these for a very long time.

They just made their way to Paris.

And the two chairs at the end

I found at the Paris Flea Market at Les Puces

where I go every week.

One of my favorite things to do in Paris,

looking for furniture and art

from all these wonderful vendors that really curate well.

[bright music]

We're in the library,

and this library probably means the most to me

because of my mother.

She kept speaking about learning French

and reading books,

and that she wanted to have a library,

and it was something that stuck with me.

And it's actually filled with a lot of books that she had.

A lot of the African art books were hers,

and a lot of the literature was hers.

Those are James Brown's boots.

James Brown is it,

James Brown is the funk,

James Brown is the rhythm,

James Brown taught me so much

and gave the world so much joy

and full of powerful messages.

Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud.

[bright music]

Downstairs is the work floor, that's where the studio is.

Well, I collect pieces that have great meaning

and inspiration to me.

People that changed my life,

that inspired me, that educated me,

and all of the things I have down there

came to me different ways.

Some personally, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown,

Prince, Bob Marley,

Miles Davis, John Lennon.

On my birthday many years ago

I was at Yoko Ono's place in the Dakota,

and she said, Today's your birthday.

I said, yeah.

And she said, Come here.

She took me into the room

where there was a set of drawers

that still had John's clothes in it,

and she pulled out this beautiful shirt.

She said, This was one of his favorites. Happy birthday.

[bright music]

We are in the bedroom.

It's a gift to be able to sleep peacefully every night.

The word recreation is re-creation.

When you're an artist,

to be able to continually be inspired,

you have to continually recreate

so that you can be vibrating

at the frequency you need

to be able to pick up the things

that you're being transmitted.

I'm just an antenna, I don't do this, it comes to me.

This room provides that space for me

to be able to close the doors

and recreate myself on a daily basis.

It's such a luxury to have a room

with this kind of volume,

and the oval shape is just extraordinary.

And very few pieces,

really, it's just the bed and two chairs,

two tables and two lamps and a console.

But they're all very substantial and hold weight,

and so you're able to put very few things in the room,

but they're all very bold and give a lot of energy.

And of course, the rock and rugs, which I've always loved.

I sleep on the floor sometimes.

This portrait that you see on the wall

is the first thing I ever got

at the flea market here in Paris.

Back in the early '90s Vanessa Paradis

turned me onto the flea market.

We used to go together all the time to buy furniture,

and I saw this beautiful charcoal drawing

of Leontyne Price, who I love,

one of the best opera singers ever.

I bought it just like that, came in that frame.

That portrait has been with me since then.

I just love the elegance

and the strength of her image.

And she was just an incredibly gifted singer.

Music is essential.

I have Bang and Olufsen all throughout the house.

I love their products, I love their design.

I did not wanna have a television in the bedroom.

I have this room next door where I can watch films,

and there's a guest room

where my special guests stay.

And then you have the landing,

the area out there where I sit sometime.

That's it on this floor.

So now I'm gonna take you down to the basement

so you can experience the heart and soul of this house.

Come on.

[indistinct lyrical music]

[upbeat music]

[indistinct lyrical music]

The design of this house,

it's been an evolution because

I moved in here when it was empty,

did work on the place,

put it together in the way I felt at the time,

but I've evolved over the last 22 years.

And so the house has just been completed

to where it's at the place that I am now.

And I know that this will last.

I won't need to touch it again in my lifetime.

It represents so many parts of my history,

my story, my evolution,

and Zoe will take it from here.

[bright music]

AD thanks for coming by.

I hope you enjoyed yourself.

And next time you're in Paris, ring the bell,

door's always open.

Peace.

[upbeat music]