Though he plays an architect in The Brutalist, the list of Adrien Brody’s houses is a short one. However, the star, whose work in the buzzy film earned him a Best Actor nomination at the upcoming Academy Awards, has expressed a personal interest in architecture and design. “Architecturally, I’m obsessed with many types of structures and the complexity and beauty of simplicity in industrial spaces,” the New York City native said in a 2023 interview with Esquire. “In my own home, I’ve merged many of the styles I’ve always loved. I love stonework and classical architecture that has grand open spaces that inspire a creative, live/work environment.”
In a recent New York profile, however, Brody revealed that he leads a nomadic lifestyle when he’s not on set—a habit that perhaps traces back to 2000, when the actor began to prepare for his Oscar-winning role in The Pianist by getting rid of his car and apartment and putting the rest of his belongings into storage. That transitory nature may explain why the actor has maintained an especially streamlined real estate portfolio over the years, opting instead to focus his efforts on painstakingly renovating one New York property. Read on for the rundown on the few places where Brody returns to rest his head.
Queens family home
Brody grew up in Woodhaven, Queens, an only child to photographer Sylvia Plachy and retired history professor Elliot Brody. The Asteroid City actor still visits his old stomping grounds, where his parents live in the white single-family house where he was raised. According to the New York interview, the walls are nearly covered with framed photos and art, including paintings by Brody, and his Oscar is kept on the living room mantel.
Hollywood Hills residence
It’s unclear if Brody maintains any roots in Los Angeles, but there have been reported references to a home of his in the Hollywood Hills at least as recently as 2021. “When he’s not globe-trotting, Brody heads back to his ‘elegant gentleman’s retreat’ in LA’s Hollywood Hills that he’s furnished with ‘classic, old, dark-wood armoires’ and a ‘solid brown leather couch,’” reads a 2003 interview with the New York Post.
A castle in New York
In 2007, the Succession actor bought an estate in Cleveland, New York, for $650,000. Known as Stone Barn Castle, the historic cobblestone building’s first life was as an innovative dairy barn. It was first completed in 1906 after a decade of construction and was designed with state-of-the-art features like automatically filled drinking fountains and an intricate ventilation system. The farm was abandoned during the Great Depression, then a 1946 fire reduced it to its stone walls.
In 1969, a local couple bought the property and began to rebuild it into the castle-like estate it is today, turning the silos into turrets and the main barn into a courtyard. The castle served as an events venue and local gathering spot under the stewardship of the same family until they sold it to Brody, who had a dream “to get a cool dramatic country house somewhere, lost in nature, back to New York and back to the countryside,” as he told IndieWire in 2015. “And to work on that sense of home that I felt was missing.” Charmingly, the actor also requested that an “old, dented, multicolored pickup truck” parked at the property be included in the sale, and could sometimes still be seen driving it around when a local news outlet reported that detail in 2014.
