The Marilyn Monroe You Don’t Know: An Interview with the Design Studio Who Reimagined Bungalow 1

On June 1st, the world will mark what would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday. While most will celebrate her enduring status as a pop-culture titan, a much more intimate tribute sits nestled within the legendary gardens of The Beverly Hills Hotel. Bungalow 1 – Marilyn's famous sanctuary – has been thoughtfully reimagined by Champalimaud Design.

Rather than leaning into the predictable spectacle of old Hollywood luxury, designer Courtney Brannan sought to uncover the woman behind the name.

By looking to Marilyn's private life, her love for nature, and her surprising affinity for restrained European Art Deco, the studio created a space that feels deeply tactile and alive.

Latest Videos From

'Rather than approaching Marilyn through the lens of nostalgia or Hollywood caricature, we were more interested in translating the duality of her personality into space. There is the public image everyone recognizes – glamorous, playful, magnetic – but also a more intimate side that often gets overlooked. The design became an exploration of that tension between performance and retreat,' Courtney shares in an exclusive interview with Homes & Gardens.

'The interiors are reflective of Marilyn's glamorous and expressive persona through curvilinear furniture, bright and abstract floor coverings, colorful travertine stones, and gold-leafed ceilings that bring a sense of theatricality and warmth. At the same time, we wanted the space to feel deeply personal rather than overtly referential. Instead of relying on literal Hollywood motifs, we focused on atmosphere, softness, and sensuality,' Courtney explains.

'Strong influences from Jean-Michel Frank pay homage to the restrained elegance of the interiors Marilyn gravitated toward in her own home, particularly through the extensive use of parchment and tactile natural materials. That restraint helped ground the more glamorous moments and prevented the project from slipping into cliché.'

This architectural restraint serves as the canvas for a much more organic narrative within the suite: Marilyn's connection to the natural world. Her life was anchored in her garden, a setting of warmth and beauty that Courtney was determined to bring indoors.

'What informed the design of Bungalow 1 most was not the public image of Marilyn, but the way she lived privately at home,' Courtney says. 'Her home life seemed to offer a sense of comfort and retreat from the Hollywood scene and the constant visibility that defined so much of her public persona. We were interested in capturing that softer, more intimate side of Marilyn – someone who valued warmth, beauty, and a connection to nature.'

To bring this alive, the studio introduced lush, expressive elements throughout the suite.

'Her love of spending time in her garden became a major influence on the interiors,' Courtney adds.

'That relationship to outdoor living inspired many of the colors, materials, and artistic elements throughout the bungalow. Deep purple and green floral artworks in the dining room, palm leaves embroidered onto apple green drapery, and vibrant tones of orange, pink, and red were all intended to evoke a lush, expressive environment that feels alive and deeply personal.'

Similarly, it would have been easy to look to the actress's film backdrops for inspiration, but Courtney chose a far more nuanced path. Instead of studying her filmography, she looked at the spaces Marilyn curated for herself behind closed doors.

'Rather than looking directly to her films, we were more interested in the environments she created for herself privately and the contrast between her public image and personal life,' Courtney explains.

'Her homes reflected a softer and more relaxed sensibility, which became important to the design approach. Feminine colors and shapes were used throughout the interiors, but always in a way that feels warm, livable, and emotionally comforting rather than overly stylized.'

When dealing with a space as iconic as Bungalow 1, the line between preservation and modernization is thin. However, Courtney points out that the room's tangible, historical connection to Marilyn's final days actually guided the studio's spatial philosophy.

'Marliyn often stayed in Bungalow 1, one of her last photoshoots was even outside the bungalow [seen below]. Embracing that iconic past was important to preserving the cultural impact of a Bungalow namesake at one of the most iconic hotels in the world,' Courtney comments.

'Designing within a space like Bungalow 1 means working with its history rather than against it. Marilyn is deeply tied to the bungalow – she stayed there frequently, and it even became part of her visual legacy through on-site photography. That history naturally carries cultural weight, so the intention wasn’t to overwrite it, but to acknowledge it,' she says. 'The goal was to let the history remain present, but to reframe it through atmosphere, materiality, and intimacy rather than literal reference.'

This sense of personal sanctuary is deeply tied to the geography of the hotel itself, though the studio resisted the temptation to lean into predictable West Coast design tropes. Instead, Courtney aimed to create a specific mood – one where California ease meets quieter European modernism.

'Marilyn Monroe’s relationship to Southern California informed both the sensibility and material language of Bungalow 1 – not as a literal regional reference, but as an atmosphere of warmth, light, and relaxed glamour,' Courtney explains.

'We drew from materials she would naturally have been surrounded by or drawn to: travertine and walnut wood floors for their sun-warmed, grounded quality, and parchment walls with goatskin-wrapped furnishings as a direct nod to Jean-Michel Frank and the understated elegance of the French Art Deco influence she admired.'

She continues: 'The result is a layered material palette that feels distinctly Californian in its ease, but refined through a European lens – balancing softness, tactility, and quiet luxury in a way that reflects both her environment and her personal aesthetic world.'

'Instead of rigid opulence, you get warmth, texture, and fluidity: materials like travertine, walnut, parchment, and goatskin; furniture that feels sculptural but inviting; and a palette that shifts between softness and vivid, almost playful intensity. It’s less about impressing and more about inhabiting – a private world rather than a public stage.'

Champalimaud Design's reimagined bungalow ultimately invites us to reconsider Marilyn not only as an actress, but as a more layered individual – a perspective explored further in the Official Centenary Book (available at Amazon). This book similarly deepens the dialogue between myth and intimacy at the heart of her legacy.

If you enjoy our celebrity news and interior design advice, why not sign up to our newsletter so you never miss the latest features?