It’s fair to say Jaime Lannister would not feel right at home in Nikolaj Coster-Waldau‘s Beverly Hills home.
The Danish actor, 49, who played the complicated King Slayer on Game of Thrones, recently bought and decorated a West Coast home base for himself, his wife Nukâka, 48, and their two teenage daughters — and there’s not a golden lion tapestry or silver wine goblet in sight.
With the help of two Scandinavian designers, he brought the spare-yet-stylish feel of his homeland to the California house.
But it was one distinctly SoCal feature that drew the actor to the property: the backyard pool!
“The big selling point for me was the garden and the yard in the back,” Coster-Waldau tells archdigest.com. “In Denmark we have three months a year when we spend as much time as we can outside. So in California, I really enjoy utilizing the outdoor space—I’m in the pool all day!”
His favorite hangout spot is the garden. “I love sitting up there,” he reveals. “It’s beautiful, you smell the flowers, and it’s a very exotic experience.”
Even the stepped brick terrace holds a nod to the Northern European nation, however. “The outdoors is so California, so I said, ‘If there’s any way to have Danish furniture out there, that would be amazing.’” (The two pieces beside the pool are from a brand called Skagerak.)
Inside, the space is sparsely decorated with contemporary furniture and art from places as diverse as Japan and Peru. Coster-Waldau left its decoration in the hands of trusted friends: Lonnie Castle, and fellow designer Birgitta Nellemann.
“The only thing was, it had to be comfortable and simple,” he tells archdigest.com of his vision for the nearly move-in-ready property. “Lonnie and Birgitta did an amazing job. I love the simplicity, which is what I wanted.”
He did take one major design risk: not showing the project to his wife until it was complete.
“Your taste is your taste,” he says, “and if you don’t like something, there’s nothing worse.” Lucky for Coster-Waldau, it was love at first sight for the former Miss Greenland, too. “It quickly felt like home—it feels like our home.”
To read the full story and see more photos, visit archdigest.com.
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