It may be the beginning of summer heat wave No. 349 on the East Coast, but here's a peek from the September issue of Elle Decor (pub. date Aug. 7), which features Reese Witherspoon's country getaway in Ojai, Calif.
The seven-acre compound, dubbed "Libbey Ranch" after its very first owner, features a Spanish-style main house designed in the '20s by Wallace Neff, as well as additions and outbuildings designed by Austen Pierpont a couple of decades later. Sometime between then and now, celebrity decorator Kathryn Ireland purchased the home, restoring it and adding colorful textiles to the original stonework, arches, fireplaces, turrets, exposed beams, century-old hardware, and Spanish tiles. Around the time that House Beautiful featured the jazzy digs in March 2008, Ireland sold it to Witherspoon, who shelled out $5.8M—hefty, for sure, but more than $1M off the $6.95M list price. That was the first of two recent purchases for Witherspoon in the area: in late 2010 the actress dropped $7M on fellow famous person Steven Seagal's Los Angeles estate, which came stocked with an on-property Buddhist temple.