Inside Freida Pinto’s Dream Home—Which Was Designed by Her Friend Bobby Berk

Pinto, who later moved to London, struggled to clearly articulate her vision beyond a feeling and the general sense that she wanted to be surrounded by warmth, familiarity, and a kind of earthiness that provided a respite during breaks from filming. Berk took note of this and sought to recreate the old world charms of the homes she grew up in. He centered the three-bedroom property’s color palette on mossy shades of green that conjured the feeling of indoor-outdoor living, cornflower blues, and crisp, airy whites. He outfitted the sitting room with a large indigo flat-weave rug, soft-edged walnut-and-oak coffee and side tables, a teak chair with rush seating, a two-light, swing-arm wall sconce by Stilnovo in black (the sole modern accent in the space), and a potted fiddle-leaf fig tree. The exposed beams on the ceiling were kept true to the house’s original structure, and prominently featured, as one enters the room, are its two cane-woven chairs—design staples of any good Indian home, which transported Pinto to the houses of all her family in Bombay. 

“I was speaking in broad strokes all the time, talking about Indian inspiration and then Bobby, I remember so clearly, just said one word: Rattan,” Pinto says. “And I looked at him and was like, ‘Oh yeah, the cane weaving.’ It’s so beautiful and so common in India. . . . Every house I went to as a girl had some sort of cane accent.” To heighten the feeling, Berk added touches of cane to virtually every room, from the four-poster bed in the primary suite bedroom to the chairs in the pattern-filled dining room whose walls feature a color-blocked blue-and-gold floral wallpaper by Kravet and loose, cream-colored drapes.

Of course, Berk oversaw more extensive changes to the property as well—including a full renovation of the guest bathroom, which previously featured, in Pinto’s words “a pink-tile, retro vibe.” In the original flooring’s place, Berk installed mosaic-style white-and-blue tiling throughout, a generous tub, and a glass curio. The room is one of Berk and Pinto’s favorite spaces—as is the nearby powder room, a little jewel box that showcases Schumacher’s sublime Birds & Butterflies wallpaper. 

The media room features walls painted in azure blue, sumptuous seating, and shelving filled with books and objets d’art to achieve an intimate, library-room aesthetic. “I love doing dark walls to help control the light,” Berk says. “It makes for a much more cozy environment.” And in addition to knocking out the wall of the breakfast nook in order to make the kitchen area a roomier, more open space, the cabinets were painted a calming sage green. Berk notes that they chose to paint instead of replace the cabinetry, since labor costs had skyrocketed during the pandemic. Berk installed a small bar for at-home entertaining, featuring a vintage bar top and a small chandelier with faceted, old glass pendalogues.

Though the project took three times longer than Berk predicted because of the pandemic, Pinto is over the moon with how it all turned out. Over the phone, she excitedly describes her new home as a kind of “mini spa,” a place full of carefully curated little nooks and crannies where she feels she is able to unwind and be herself. “I’m not even just saying this to you because there’s an article you have to write,” she says. “But I’ve literally texted Cory almost every day to say we couldn’t have done better with buying this house, and with the way it was designed, because I truly feel at home.”

“And that word, home, is such a weighty thing,” she continues, “If you have a house and you don’t feel like you belong, or that it belongs to you, it’s really very uncomfortable. And I don’t have that feeling at all.”