As Ashley Tisdale settled into her new home in LA, there were two sections of the property that were topmost in her mind: her backyard and her office. The spaces serve distinct purposes in her life. The backyard represented an oasis for her young family—its ample bamboo trees and original circular brick patio were an ideal starting point for a space that could be both restorative on a day-to-day basis and suitable for hosting groups. The office, located in the guest house, represented her first time having a distinct space to work on her interior design business and her wellness brands, Frenshe and Being Frenshe.
“[Frenshe and Being Frenshe are] about living a nontoxic life, so seeing how that was really going to be the theme for the office, I just wanted to go with really natural textures and let greenery speak. The plan for the office was about creating a really calm environment that feels inspiring to everybody that works here,” Tisdale tells AD. Though large windows displaying the yard were already in place in the office space, Tisdale converted them into doors to let the gorgeous greenery in further. “This office is part of the guest house, so it's really a space just for my work, and I think it's helped ground me. It's great to have space for my team with me and to just be really creative.”
To finesse the flora, Tisdale called in Stephen Block and Jana Feifer of Inner Gardens, a landscape design team and garden furnishings showroom based in LA, who she’d worked with on her previous home. “I am not someone with a green thumb,” Tisdale states with a chuckle, explaining that Inner Gardens’s convenient maintenance service made it more approachable to bring in plants she’d be concerned about taking care of herself.
It wasn’t their expertise on plant life alone that allowed Tisdale to trust Inner Gardens as collaborators on the projects. “They have some of the most amazing pieces,” Tisdale says, referring to their extensive showroom of pots and garden furnishings in LA—a particularly valuable asset in a world of forever delayed shipments and backordered decor. Feifer and Block knew Tisdale was a fan of Swiss furniture pioneer Willy Guhl—she already had a piece by him in her space—so they fleshed out her collection with more works by Guhl for one section of the backyard.
The existing circular brick patio demanded an eye-catching piece, and Block knew just the thing. “The table is a California redwood that was hand-built,” Block states. “The thing that really sold me when I bought it was that the centerpiece is a lazy Susan, and you just don't see that anymore. It just seemed like a perfect thing for her and her family.” Feifer continues, “She entertains a lot, and she’s always got people over, so we wanted her to feel like it was kind of a warm sanctuary, and it feels like it's a peaceful garden, kind of enclosed with the bamboo and the citrus.” French spring chairs were chosen to surround the table, their swirl shapes reaffirming the dreamlike quality set forth by the vegetation.
In both the office and the yard, furniture and plants are chosen intentionally to play off of and inform each other, neither taking the central place of importance, making the collaborative ease between Ashley Tisdale and the Inner Gardens team essential. “Jana cares so much, and she’s so lovely,” Tisdale explains. “I love being able to put together someone's home that will make them feel comfortable, make them feel inspired. I feel a lot of our surroundings really do help with our mental health, so I really approach it in that way.”
