Watch Inside Kate Upton & Justin Verlander’s Elegant NYC Home | Open Door

Hello AD, welcome to our home.

Hi, come on in.

Let us show you around.

[upbeat music]

So this is our entryway, welcome.

So in New York, you really have to take your shoes off,

’cause you don’t want the streets in your house.

I just learned this, by the way.

I didn’t know.

Kate’s been a New Yorker.

So our designer John designed this entry piece

that’s really cool, where it lifts up.

You wouldn’t think it does.

My favorite boot.

And you can just throw all your

shoes in there, or your packages.

Now, we’re gonna keep it formal for you guys,

so we’re gonna keep our shoes on for this tour.

Yeah, these are my house shoes.

We also have this really great piece

from El Anatsui that we really love,

and wanted it to be a focal point walking into the house.

[Justin] Really pops when you open the door.

It’s like a real statement piece.

My family member Tom Lohler commissioned it,

and so it’s really special to us.

This is a really cool piece.

I love the female energy.

Our designer John found this at a flea market in New York.

[Justin] Ruth Litoff, I believe.

[Kate] Yes.

You can always find cool things in New York.

And this is, you know,

female energy.

You know, this is Kate’s place.

You’re allowed here too.

[Kate laughing]

[mellow music]

So this is our living room.

We really wanted to have fun and have a lot of color.

We’re still so young,

and I feel like working with some designers,

they wanna make us very serious,

and I think in this space it really

shows we’re here to have fun.

This is the fun room.

This is Kate’s place, she had full design control.

A lot of people call it a she-shed, right?

But we call this her Shenthouse.

[Kate] Yeah, I really made that statement

by painting the whole thing pink.

I actually liked the pink though.

I was a little concerned early on when she told me.

But when we first moved in, it was just all white.

It was brand new, nothing had been done-

Yeah, the whole building was a new build.

And when I played for the Mets,

when I lived here, it was all white.

Once I got in with the rooms painted, it really softened it.

Which was actually your intent,

it brought down the ceilings a bit.

It really kind of made it cozy.

I worked with interior designer John Ruggiero,

and we were staying in here

and seeing these gorgeous sunsets,

and you have these beautiful views of Central Park,

and we really wanted to bring that nature

and those colors of the sunset into the apartment.

As a fashion model, golden hour is very important,

so I hope that you feel golden hour in this room.

And we love to entertain here.

If it feels like you’d have a cocktail

in here, that was the intent.

[Justin] This past season when

we came and played in New York,

I did have a bunch of my teammates over.

It became, what would the boy version be?

The He-hut.

Well…

Suddenly.

I think it’s quite clear that it’s still the Shenthouse.

Yes. [laughs]

It was really the first time that

we had entertained, I had entertained.

I mean, it functioned so well.

We were so happy.

And since then, we’ve had a bunch of people over.

[Kate] We do cocktail hour in here

and then we walk to our dinner spot.

[upbeat music]

Oh and this is Norman.

This is Normy Norm.

He’s a good boy.

He loves the city.

He loves walking with us, ’cause we take him most places.

Yeah, we can take him to restaurants here.

He is a little nervous of the cars and stuff, but-

Yeah, the construction.

He’s a good boy though.

He really is always feeling himself.

He’s so pretty.

[Justin] Yeah.

[Kate and Justin laughing]

We named him Norman because our daughter

could say Norman the best when we first got him.

She would go, Nor-man.

She always separated them and couldn’t say them together.

Nor-man.

We have like a love triangle where

Norman’s obsessed with Genevieve,

Genevieve’s obsessed with Bellamy,

and Bellamy’s obsessed with Norman.

[Justin and Kate laughing]

And you and I are obsessed with each other.

Yes, yeah.

Speaking of Genevieve, this is one of her favorite rooms,

because she loves to put on theater

performances with my nieces as well.

We sit here and they come out of the theater room

and do a reveal out of the curtain,

and then they put on a show for us.

It is the cutest thing.

[Kate] It’s so fun.

[Kate and Justin laughing]

[mellow music]

Welcome to our theater room.

Yes, we wanted this to really feel

like an old Hollywood screening movie room,

so I hope that those are the vibes you get.

And it’s very art deco, if you look at the ceiling,

and all this wainscoting that we added to make this feel

like the apartment’s been here for a while,

even though it’s a new build.

This used to be formal dining,

but we don’t live in New York like that.

Like we said, we’ll usually have

cocktails and then go out to dinner,

and we wanted to have a place that was comfortable,

that we can lounge in and watch movies with the kids,

and that’s what we did.

We also, one of my favorite things is this lamp.

[Justin] The Cher lamp.

Yes!

The rumor is that Cher was gonna get

this lamp, and I got it before her.

It makes me feel very special that,

in my she-shed, Cher might have wanted my lamp.

We don’t know if that’s true,

but if it is, Cher-

You’re welcome here anytime.

You can come and see the lamp.

When Kate and I first started dating,

when I came over to her apartment, I asked her,

I was like, where’s all your covers and modeling photos?

And she was like, Well-

I was like, that would be really weird

if I had a bunch of photos of myself all over my walls.

Which is totally true.

So I had this fun idea.

I commissioned this piece over here from Charles Fazzino.

It’s like a piece of 3D art.

Obviously Kate loves the city so much, so it’s Times Square.

And then I took a lot of her favorite photographs and covers

and put them in this piece so it wasn’t so in your face,

it was more cute, and a gift from me,

so she has to put it in the house.

It’s also the theater district,

and here we are in the theater room, so it just worked.

Diana al-Hadid is one of our favorite pieces of art.

It’s just so amazing.

It used to be in the living room,

and then when we renovated, we moved it in this room,

and the way that it changed with the dark walls

and just a different light was really incredible.

You completely see different

reflections, different pieces.

[Justin] The gold pops.

The gold pops.

I love it in this space.

Yeah, it feels so good.

[Kate] We watch kids movies the most.

[Justin and Kate laughing]

[Justin] Lots of kids movies.

[Kate] Yes.

[Justin] We’re very well versed in children’s movies.

[Kate] Yeah.

And then my favorite part is closing the curtains

And it’s just such a vibe.

Such a vibe, it’s so great.

You know, you feel like you’re in the theater

[funky music]

[Kate] If it’s not clear from this apartment,

I love pink and green.

[Kate laughing]

So I really wanted a green kitchen.

You got green!

I did get green.

This wallpaper is really the star of the kitchen.

I saw this wallpaper in my friend

Bailey’s house, and I loved it.

And separately, John brought this

in the design meeting as a sample,

and I knew exactly what it looked like and I fell in love,

and it felt very kismet that we both love this wallpaper.

It’s bringing the pink in from the rest of the apartment,

having the green, and the cabinetry,

and it has that gold which adds that little extra glam.

Extra glam?

A lot glam!

Yeah.

[Kate] This company is phenomenal, de Gournay,

and they come in and personally install

and make sure that no nook or cranny is missed.

I mean, this little place right here,

they stood back and looked once the wallpaper was in,

and there was a space right here,

so they hand painted this nest.

I love how symbolic it is,

’cause it’s our home, it’s our nest,

and there’s a nest here.

[Justin] And then we have our breakfast nook.

We really use this as the heart of the home.

[Kate] This is where we’re pretty much eating every meal.

We eat most meals here, unless we wanna feel very formal,

and we’ll go in the other room.

Everybody’s close together.

We both cook, we kind of have our different things..

But not here.

I don’t know, being in the city,

we don’t really cook here.

[Kate laughing]

Maybe that’s why the wallpaper’s so glam

[Kate and Justin laughing]

Don’t have to worry about anything getting on it.

Yes.

[Justin] We love the steam oven-

We had it at a rental in Houston, actually.

A rental in Houston when we were playing there.

And the owner, when we rented it,

said, You’re gonna love this steam oven.

And we were like,

okay, whatever.

We ended up using it all the time, loved it.

And now ever since, every house,

everything we renovated, we demand to have a steam oven.

Yeah, it’s the best.

It steams.

[Justin] It steams

[Kate] So it keeps all your chicken, your fish moist.

And it heats it up super fast,

which is obviously great ’cause I eat a lot.

I’m starving all the time.

Oh my God.

[Justin laughing]

We actually focus a lot on lighting

because we’re both so tall,

so you want to like stand on the other side,

and be able to see someone eye to eye.

We’ve had a couple experiences where it’s like, oh no.

Yes-

I can’t see you.

You can’t talk to each other.

And so the height of it is really important,

but we wanted to bring these ceilings down.

[Justin] John did a great job, these are beautiful.

[upbeat music]

So this is the primary bedroom.

I’m a big ideas girl,

and I feel like John Ruggiero took all of my ideas

and just elevated them to such a visual narrative.

He really did this room.

Giving this bedroom its own color, we were blown away.

[Justin] Walked in and was just like, oh my God.

This bed John designed,

and he worked with a local shop

in Brooklyn called Stitch who made it.

And you can see the nature narrative brought back,

and then having the pink throughout the apartment.

And then we wanted this bed to be high enough,

and none of this furniture to impede

our view of New York City.

We utilize this space a lot.

It feels so nice when we want

kind of like our own adult space,

you know, we’ll use this sitting area.

We very much were like, why do the kids

have all the fun with their bedrooms?

And we wanted color, and we wanted fun too.

And we wanted that experience in the primary.

We always are adding things to make this apartment

feel like it’s been here longer,

and to feel art deco, and pre-war.

So we added these bookcases and we also added the doors,

which before we didn’t have a door.

We used a shower curtain.

Yes, and that was the only way to black out our room.

So we felt really excited when we got a door to our bedroom.

Yeah, big deal.

Big deal.

I think John did a really amazing job,

because for me, one of the most important things

in a bedroom is being able to actually sleep.

[Kate] For recovery as an athlete, yeah.

So I really focus on my sleep, particularly in season.

So rule number one for me in this

room was it needs to be blackout,

and boy, is it.

You can’t even see your hand in here.

If you get up in the middle of the night,

you have to like feel your way to the door.

Should we black it out?

Yep, let’s black it out.

We kind of will put up things in the other homes,

like on the windows to make sure it’s black out.

But to be able to do it like this

and still have it so gorgeous

was just like really well done.

Norman thinks it’s bedtime now.

Yeah.

Norman’s like, where’s my bed?

[Justin] The valance kind of helps keep out the light

that would bleed over the top.

[Kate] But he made them modern,

’cause normally it can become a little traditional.

[Justin] We press a button and those close,

but then you also have the shade that drops down as well,

so that it really, it really functions well.

And then he thought of so much, even the doorway has a slat,

and that hallway gets a lot of natural light,

so that it just seals the whole doorway.

It’s nice and dark.

Ta-dah!

I mean, it’s the middle of the day right now,

so you know, it works pretty good.

[Kate] Yeah.

[Justin laughing]

[Justin] Sleep is important!

Yes.

I never knew about it until I married an athlete.

Now I know so much about sleep.

[chilled music]

In Genevieve’s bedroom, yes.

[Justin] Genevieve was very opinionated.

Yes, we’re raising a strong woman-

[Justin] Absolutely.

[Kate] And we love that she has so many opinions.

[Justin] Absolutely.

[Kate] And so she had a lot of

creative input for her room.

[Justin] She wanted like the coziest bed set up.

[Kate] Where she could have her books and her toys.

[Justin] And the rug.

[Kate] Yeah, there was this one rug

that is like memory foam in her room,

and she was like, you can change my room,

but you cannot take this rug out.

[Justin] Cannot take the rug.

[Kate] So John had to find a way

to cut it to fit into the room.

[Justin] He made it really beautiful.

[Kate] She really loves purple and she loves pink,

but she wanted a purple room,

and as we were looking at paint colors, her paint color-

[Justin] Genevieve purple.

[Kate] Yes.

[Justin] Which is just so amazing.

It was just like, it just happened to be we found the color,

and it was Genevieve purple, which she loves.

[Kate] Yeah, she picked out the wallpaper.

[Justin] Yeah, the wallpaper on her bed-

[Kate] It’s actually fabric-

[Justin] It’s fabric, so it’s like,

we’ll have her little friends over

and the first thing that she does

is wants to show them to her room,

and it’s just like the cutest, it’s the cutest thing.

She’s so proud of that room.

She’s so proud.

[upbeat music]

Thanks for stopping by.

Yeah, thanks AD.

Thanks for coming, but get out.

We gotta get pajamas on and go to bed.

[Kate laughing]

[upbeat music]