See Anderson Cooper’s Stunning Brazilian Vacation Home
Anderson Cooper invites Architectural Digest into his vacation house. (Photo: Simon Upton/Architectural Digest)
On Anderson Cooper’s desk at CNN in New York, there’s a photo of the Quadrado (or town square) in the lush beach town of Trancoso, Brazil, reminding him at all times of the gorgeous vacation home that he owns there. It’s 14 hours away, requiring multiple flights and a drive, but it’s enough to make a stressful job in journalism more bearable.
Though he doesn’t get down there as often as he’d like, Cooper explains in the new issue of Architectural Digest, “Just knowing that my house exists makes me happy.“
Cooper and partner Benjamin Maisani cuddle their neighbor’s dogs. (Photo: Simon Upton/Architectural Digest)
As it should! Photographs of Casa Anderson show a retreat that’s equal parts luxurious and rustic, full of color and the perks of a celebrity home in a tropical paradise. The property features four cottages: one for the kitchen and dining are, two guest cottages, and one building that’s a two-story treehouse. In that one, the master bedroom is upstairs, while an outdoor living room lies below. A crystal-blue pool and cacao, mango, and açai trees await outside.
Much of the home is decorated with the works of local artisans. (Photo: Simon Upton/Architectural Digest)
Wilbert Das, a former fashion designer who was once the creative director of Diesel clothing, envisioned the compound for Cooper. The result is a stunning place that fits in well with the rest of the area by design. Many of the materials used outside were salvaged from a nearby farmhouse. The interior decor features pieces mostly from local artists and vintage shops.
“I like to feel rooted wherever I happen to be,” Cooper tells the magazine, “so I prefer pieces that reflect something about the local history and style.”
Cooper looks relaxed on the latest issue of AD. (Photo: Simon Upton/Architectural Digest)
The 60 Minutes contributor, 49, says he fell in love with the town the first time he saw it, during a 2013 escape with his partner, Benjamin Maisani, and his friend Andy Cohen, the host of Bravo's Watch What Happens Live.
“I put my bags down in the bungalow where we were staying, I walked out onto the porch overlooking the Quadrado, the town square, and I just watched for a couple of hours,” he says. “In the late afternoon, the kids started playing soccer, the horsemen began to return from the fields, and the lights came on in the little fishermen’s cottages. It’s hard to explain the attraction, but I just sat there, spellbound. Within a day I was fantasizing about buying a house there,” Cooper reveals. “Ben thought I’d lost my mind, and Andy, who is encouraging about almost everything, thought I was nuts, too.”
The CNN host kicks back with a book in his personal paradise. (Photo: Simon Upton/Architectural Digest)
But they couldn’t talk Cooper out of it. Can you blame him?
“I’ve worked in 70 countries and traveled to even more, and I’ve never seen anything like Trancoso,” he says.
Check out more photos of Cooper’s gorgeous part-time home in the latest Architectural Digest, on newsstands in New York and L.A. now and nationwide July 12.
