It was the simple matter of space that led chart-topping, Grammy-winning music producer and songwriter Anton Zaslavski—better known as Zedd—to his current home high on Benedict Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills. There, just about every bit of his contemporary 9,400-square-foot house—“modern and slick but really warm,” he says—is in use. He’d quickly grown out of his first home due to a smattering of global friends always crashing—plus he needed a music studio.
“I saw an ad for this house, which was way too expensive, but I asked if I could look at it for inspiration—like, if I wanted to build my own house. I drove down the gate of the house and my brain went immediately to: This is something Steve Jobs would have enjoyed,” says Zaslavski. “I walked in here and it was so perfect.” Fast forward ten subsequent visits and an entire year later: He ended up buying the new modern estate complete with a rooftop deck, pool, and jacuzzi. Still, “when you buy something of this size you question every little thing,” says Zaslavski. “But this is really as close to perfect a house for me as I can get.” The separate four-car garage is in the process of being transformed into a full music studio for his work. He also has enough space on his 3.2-acre lot to later add another 7,000 square feet of house or studio, or maybe a bowling alley, which he calls “a dream. The goal is to never have to leave,” he laughs. “There’s three food trucks outside Monday through Friday—that’s a good step.”
When you buy something of this size you question every little thing,” says Zaslavski. “But this is really as close to perfect a house for me as I can get.
Inside, he’s created his own expansive Eden. “I follow a bunch of architecture sites I get inspiration from, and I’ve always been into really modern, slick, sharp corners,” he says. He also finds Instagram and his travels influential for getting ideas for the specific placement of objects. Many of the pieces of furniture came from his previous home, and he bought some of the pieces from the staging company. His art collection, however, had to be rethought to fit the much larger scale. “Symmetry is probably the most important thing to me,” says Zaslavski, who also values warmth in a home. “I have friends who have ultramodern homes and the only thing you can imagine is having a party there. You can’t imagine just laying on the couch.”
Bringing the outdoors in was also key for Zaslavski—so the fact the home has a water feature and an atrium with an olive tree inside was a major selling point. Massively high wooden ceilings and floor-to-ceiling glass also open everything up to the panoramic canyon views he adores. “All those things make it feel really homey to me.”
Having just moved in last fall, the home is still a work in progress. Perhaps the main reason for this is that Zaslavski, surprisingly, doesn’t use an interior designer. “I have really specific taste and I’m okay with it taking a while and therefore being more personal and stuff I actually like,” he explains. His art is also acquired naturally—even through Instagram—from his creative friends. At his old house, “every piece of art was from somebody I know, nothing was random, so I’m trying to keep that.” Still, there are about 20 more pieces in storage that he hasn’t decided on placement for. Despite his mass collection, “the value is whatever it’s worth to me—I just want to look at art and be happy, so I’m not an art collector in the traditional sense.”
A pantry full of liquor and a Red Bull fridge seems conducive to epic parties but, according to Zaslavski, he actually doesn’t have ragers. A housewarming for 40 to 50 people is about as large as it gets, as Zaslavski really values his privacy. Instead, he opts to open his zen home to friends for poker nights and pool parties. In fact, he’s only spent about two days alone in the expansive house. And contrary to the assumption that a musician would be blaring music through an impressive sound system from noon to night, he doesn’t actually play anything throughout his home on a regular basis. “Because I work on so much music,” explains Zaslavski, “I think silence is the most enjoyable part.” Instead, it’s his art that really touches him: “Colors and motions and shapes are totally my things.”
