Frank Pollaro Furniture

Brad Pitt has been cast in a new role…. not a movie role, but instead has turned his infatuation as a furniture designer into creating a high-end collection of furniture for a luxury design house.

Pitt has teamed up with furniture maker Frank Pollaro, whose New Jersey firm is noted for its impeccable reproductions of Art Deco furnishings. The official Pitt Pollaro site launched on November 11th at: http://www.pitt-pollaro.com

When Pollaro and Brad Pitt met to install a reproduction Ruhlmann desk the actor had custom-built a few years ago, a sketchbook filled with drawings of furniture designs was spotted by Pollaro. That was when they decided to make some of the stuff real. Brad thought that could be fun.

Pitt said “I’m drawn to furniture design as complete architecture on a minor scale. I am obsessively bent on quality, to an unhealthy degree.” Pit said Pollaro expresses the “same mad spirit of the craftsmen of yore, with their obsessive attention to detail.”

Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow Rose had a big impact on the 48-year-old actor. Mackintosh’s collections were drawn with a continuous line and with the fluidity of a single line, whether it be geometric or circular. An uninterrupted line has great appeal to Pitt, He explains that there is a symbolic element that is tough to articulate. He states “There is something more grand at play, as if you could tell the story of one’s life with a single line — from birth to death, with all the bloody triumphs and perceived humiliating losses, even boredoms, along the way.”

According to Pollaro, Brad Pitt has thousands of ideas … to decide which ones to produce the two men frequently hold seven to ten hour meetings where they engage in discussions about design, materials, craftsmanship, classicism and modernization.

The dozen-piece collection, which will be unveiled by the Pollaro furniture house in New York between November 13 and 15, will include sophisticated Art Deco ocean liner beds, a dining table, a cocktail table, several side tables, a few club chairs, even a bathtub for two in Statuario Venato marble. Many of the designs feature single lines that can be geometric such as the 17 foot long wood dining table whose jagged base has dramatic zigzags at astonishing angles. Or a glass-top side table with a 24K gold spiraling metal base.

All of the initial designs will be made in numbered editions or limited production and will be signed by Pitt and Pollaro. Although specific prices are not discussed they are by and large at the high end of the custom-furnishings scale. A chair might sell for $45,000, but some pieces may be put into large-scale production using different materials, a molded plastic chair for instance, which might sell for a fraction of that.

When asked how he feels about being called a furniture designer, Pitt cautions “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Pollaro predicts, for his part, that this is just the beginning. “I think we’ll be doing this for a long time,” he says.

Source: Getty Images – Pascal Le Segretain

Sounds like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have decided to purchase a luxurious $40 million home in the picturesque hills of Valpolicella, Italy.

According to Sky Italy magazine, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were initially looking for an Italian villa in the $10 million price range.

But after seeing the stunning $40 million Italian villa, Pitt and Jolie decided to purchase the luxury vacation home.

The amazing home is about 18,000 square foot.

In a N.Y. Daily News article, they state that the home “features 15 bedrooms, a home cinema, two swimming pools, a gym, and several jacuzzis.”

For the past few weeks Prague has been home to Pitt and Jolie, whose presence has made this capital—so pretty it could have been concocted by a pâtissier—the red-hot center of the celebrity universe.

Full article

Angelina has many tattoos including: the letter “H” on the inside of her left wrist (in honor of her brother, James Haven), “A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages” on her left forearm (a Tennessee Williams quote), the Japanese sign for death, two American Indian symbols, a dragon and a large black cross. She also collects knives and likes mortuary science.

Angelina is of Czech, English, and Native American heritage and has measurements of 36C-28-36. Her favorite Disney character is Dumbo the flying elephant, and cried when she learned he was able to fly.

Angelina has been in the news as much for her humanitarian efforts in Africa, as for her relationship with Brad Pitt and their adopted children.

Brad Pitt was chosen as one of People Magazine’s annual 100 Most Beautiful People in the World in May 2007.

Brad Pitt revealed in 2007 that he still remains friends with his ex-wife Jennifer Aniston. “Jen and I still maintain a deep friendship and have a lot of life together that isn’t erased in any way. I don’t know how better to have handled it. My view was, this is no one’s business in the end – at least in matters of the heart.

So you need to protect all involved as much as possible. I don’t know if that cooled things off or exacerbated them, but it was a thing I felt justly about at the time. Again, the thing guiding me then was you don’t know how many days you have and you need life to be everything you want it to be.”

Brad says he really admires Angelina Jolie’s devotion to orphans, but he still longs to have children of his own.  Brad and Angelina are awaiting the birth of twins.

When Pitt was asked about being a father, “My expectations about being a dad are being excelled daily. When I tuck the children in at night I always take the time to talk to them. I have three kids now and next year I’ll have six then nine. We’re looking for a soccer team. I want to compete in the next World Cup.”