Kristin Cavallari, like the rest of us, is just trying to make her busy life as efficient as possible. “I’ve tried to set it up so that I'm not running around constantly. The less often I have to leave my house, the better,” she says.
Her dream home, then, should operate as a kind of one-stop shop for her and her family, which is what sold her on the secluded 130-acre property south of Nashville.
Aside from being reality TV royalty, having spent her teens and early 20s on MTV megahits Laguna Beach and The Hills, plus two E! network series of her own, Cavallari is an entrepreneur. She’s the founder, CEO, and designer of jewelry brand Uncommon James and its sister skin care brand Uncommon Beauty. She also hosts the weekly podcast Let’s Be Honest. Oh, and she’s a single mother of three tweenagers.
She wasn’t even in the market for a new place, having bought all new furniture and having done a full redesign of the house that she moved into in 2020 after her divorce from former NFLer Jay Cutler. Still, she decided to indulge a call from her friend and real estate agent who asked her to come check out a new house 10 minutes down the road.
“I completely fell in love with it,” she says. “I loved that it’s really private. I loved how open it is with the floor-to-ceiling windows.” The convenience was a selling factor, too. “And I loved that it’s one floor. This house is really manageable, which is important, because it’s just me and the kids.” She got the keys in 2024 and set to work on a few important updates. “I loved everything down to the light fixtures, so there wasn’t a lot design-wise I wanted to change.”
For the interior, Cavallari teamed up (again) with designer April Tomlin. The two have been friends for over 10 years, and this would be the fourth house they worked on together. “Because I know April so well and I love her work so much, I just give her free rein to do whatever she wants because I know it’s going to be amazing,” says Cavallari.
“Kristin’s a terribly busy mom,” says Tomlin, “so a no-fuss house that still feels warm and cozy was our top priority.” To pull it off, Tomlin played off of Cavallari’s own fashion aesthetic and her self-sufficient, country girl personality—Cavallari grows her own vegetables on the property—by furnishing the modern space with neutrals and organic shapes and many of the pieces from her previous home.
Shop an editor-curated selection of furniture and decor inspired by the star’s style?
Among the new pieces, though, Tomlin nudged Cavallari a step beyond her penchant for neutrals with a kid- and dog-proof rust-colored couch from Verellen. She also leveraged marble accent pieces to contrast the creams and beiges, including a Baker Furniture coffee table, and commissioned a large artwork by Mckenzie Dove.
With windows as walls in the living room, Cavallari decided to forgo window treatments and let the view act as decor. “That’s the one thing I pushed back on April about,” says Cavallari. “She initially wanted to get curtains in there, and I said, absolutely not. I don't have neighbors, so I have no need for curtains. The windows and the light are the selling point of the house. And I love how the light changes throughout the day.”
The big projects were more structural updates to make the property cater to convenience: an expansive closet and a bathroom with a massive tub were added onto the primary suite, and a home gym was built. “Working out is how I stay sane,” says Cavallari. “For me to drive to the gym would be 25 minutes. That’s an entire morning for me. So it was worth it to have it built.”
She converted a barn on the property into an indoor basketball court for her hoops-obsessed sons. And Cavallari flipped an extra bedroom in the guesthouse into a studio, outfitted with mics and cameras, from which she can record Let’s Be Honest.
As would befit someone who we all watched spend her formative years gossiping poolside on Laguna Beach, Cavallari wanted a pool added to the property. She enlisted Nick Buchholz of Basin Pool Designs to come up with the plan. “Kristin’s very quick to make decisions, and she’ll tell you if she doesn’t like what you’re talking about, which actually made my life easy,” says Buchholz. He set about designing a tranquil pool area that acts as a connective thread among the property’s buildings: the main house, the barn, and the guesthouse. “My goal was basically to create a sense of calm with the water, so there’s no delineation between the pool and the rest of the house.”
After two years of renovations and design refreshes, Cavallari is finally settled in, name-checking her podcast as she says, ”I’ll be honest with you, I came home the other night from a dinner when it was dark and the house was all lit up. I sat at my kitchen countertop and looked outside and felt really proud and really grateful. I was just like, I can’t believe I was able to make this happen. I’ve never felt that before as far as a house goes.”