This article originally appeared in the October 2004 issue of Architectural Digest.

Like Madonna or Cher, Linda Ronstadt is a performer whose public incarnations evoke whole eras. What could be more '60s than Ronstadt slapping a tambourine against her miniskirt to the beat of the Stone Poneys? More '70s than her album Heart Like a Wheel—or her affair of the heart with California governor Jerry Brown? More '80s than her Broadway stint with Rex Smith in The Pirates of Penzance?

Professionally speaking, the singer has continued to experiment over the last two decades or so, mastering musical styles from orchestral pop to traditional Mexican. Personally, however, she's as tradition-bound as they come. Ronstadt has two adopted kids now, and several years ago the three of them quit California for Tucson, Arizona. "I decided to raise my children there because they have more dirt," says Ronstadt, "as opposed to concrete." Tucson is where her father ran Ronstadt's Hardware, where her grandfather once managed a sprawling cattle ranch and where, on the remaining 10 acres of that ranch, she grew up. "That sense of place," she points out, "is something very hard to come by these days."

In an old central Tucson neighborhood laid out by a student of Central Park designer Frederick Law Olmsted, Ronstadt found a pink stucco Mediterranean-style house built by Roy Place in 1928. "I fell in love with it when I saw it because it had this tile in the study that reminded me of my father's room in our old house," she says. "And I think I've met almost everyone that's lived in the house. I know the family that built it and the daughter of the family that grew up in it. So it's always felt like a house that was loved." The place was in good shape when the singer acquired it, but it was slightly cramped after her three-story residence in San Francisco. "None of my furniture fit. The house has lots of doors and windows, and I couldn't figure out where to put anything."

Her quandary led her to Studio Encanto, a neighborhood establishment run by interior designer Christy Martin. "She just waltzed into the shop one day and said that she was looking for a decorator and had heard I was the best in town," recalls Martin. "My mouth kind of dropped open. I said thank you and pretended I didn't know who she was." Martin not only knew who the entertainer was, her former husband had been the last tenant of Ronstadt's new house.





1 / 9 Chevron Chevron COPYRIGHT ©2003 THE CONDÉ NAST PUBLICATIONS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Ronstadt’s study, nestled between the entrance hall and a guest room, features original tile work around and above the fireplace. A Native American beaded bag hangs at left, near a signed William Morris chair. The paintings on the mantel are by Maynard Dixon.

Their first project together was redoing the children's bedrooms—Ronstadt's daughter got a star-spangled ceiling; her son, a cowboy motif. Then they turned their attention to the singer's own bedroom, placing her bed on the diagonal to make room for a gingerbread-trimmed mantel that Ronstadt had purchased in L.A. Martin, along with Tucson-based architect Bob Vint, oversaw construction of a new master bath (and a breakfast room below), taking pains to see that its arches and tiles and fixtures matched the period details of the rest of the house.