Nicole Richie and Joel Madden’s homes, throughout their nearly two decades as a couple, have always seemed reflective of their interesting personalities. A true California girl through and through, Berkeley native Richie has mostly stayed put in the Golden State throughout her life. The actor, designer, and sometimes rapper was adopted by music legend Lionel Richie at the age of three and rose to prominence as a pop-culture icon of the aughts when she starred in reality series The Simple Life alongside Paris Hilton from 2003 until 2007; the lifelong friends will soon reunite to honor the show’s 20th anniversary with a three-part special, Paris & Nicole: The Encore. In 2006, Richie began dating Good Charlotte frontman Madden (who at the time resided in a bachelor pad fit for a pop-punk rocker), and the pair bought their first home together three years later.
Since then, the House of Harlow founder has established a downright wholesome cottagecore-style home life for herself, raising a menagerie of pets, gardening, beekeeping, and harvesting eggs from her backyard chicken coop. “My perfect night in is to be home alone, in my garden,” Richie told British Vogue in 2020. “I got into gardening because I really just fell in love with the idea of being outside. Watching food grow is just the opportunity to relax, to decompress.” Unsurprisingly, Richie and Madden’s homes have tended to reflect the entrepreneur’s chic yet down-to-earth domestic sensibilities, often with room for a mini homestead in the back. Read on for a rundown on all of the properties that the couple have called home.
Madden’s Glendale bachelor pad
In 2004—two years before he and Richie’s relationship began—Madden spent $1.8 million on a 4,718-square-foot Spanish Colonial in Glendale, California. Built in 1930, the two-story structure had exposed beams, hardwood floors, crown molding, and three fireplaces lined with colorful Spanish tiles. Madden toured the four-bedroom and four-bathroom house on MTV Cribs in 2007, showcasing his art collection, a tabletop collection of decorative skulls (“It just makes me happy when I see skulls,” the rocker explains in the episode), and a pair of stained-glass doors emblazoned with gothic-style letters “G” and “C” for Good Charlotte—a feature that the home still had the last time it hit the market, per listing photos. The vocalist and Richie, who began dating in 2006, purchased a place together in 2009, and the former bachelor pad became a second home for the couple until they sold it in 2014 for about $1.84 million.
Family house in Laurel Canyon
Richie and Madden welcomed their first child, Harlow, in 2008. In May 2009, the growing family upgraded to a larger $1.91 million home in Los Angeles’s Laurel Canyon neighborhood. (Four months later, the couple welcomed their second child, Sparrow, and in 2010, they tied the knot.) Originally built in 1914, the heavily remodeled dwelling sported a midcentury-modern-inspired look. Rock walls, exposed beams, and wood paneling gave the home a rustic style. Its standout feature was a colossal glass sky dome that graced a double-height foyer at the heart of the 6,300-square-foot home. Five bedrooms, six bathrooms, an office, a gym, and an attached guesthouse were also found on the premises. The backyard wasn’t without its own slew of amenities, including a lagoon-style swimming pool, a waterfall spa, a sprawling patio, and a play area. The pair listed the abode for $3.5 million in May 2015; it ultimately changed hands for $2.67 million six months later.
Celebrity pedigreed Beverly Hills pad
Richie and Madden moved next in 2015, when they paid $6.7 million for a Beverly Hills home that was owned by Jack Nicholson the ’90s. The contemporary-style pad was built in 1957 and had four bedrooms and four bathrooms, spanning a little over 5,500 square feet. Tall hedges and an ivy-covered gate secured the half-acre property, which also held a swimming pool, an attached garage, a spacious backyard patio, a vegetable garden, two beehives, and a custom-built chicken coop. “We did a miniature version of my own house in terms of color and style,” Richie told AD during a 2017 tour of the backyard coop. “I wanted one color palette throughout. It’s gray.” The Great News actor had started raising chickens three years prior, at her former Laurel Canyon home. “They are the easiest animals to take care of, they are so much fun for kids, and they just give me beautiful colored eggs every day,” she told AD.
