Star Kitchen: Carla Hall
Carla Hall's many careers have taken her all over — she was an accountant in Tampa, a model in Milan and Paris, and is a talk-show host in New York City — but there's no place she'd rather be than in her kitchen in Washington, D.C. The chef and Halloween Baking Championship judge launched her first catering business from this cozy row house south of the Capitol, and it's where she relaxes with her husband, Matthew, when she's not at her Brooklyn restaurant, Carla's Southern Kitchen, or on a TV set (she co-hosts The Chew). Although the kitchen is the couple's happy place these days, it wasn't when they got married. Renovating and decorating called for lots of newlywed compromises. Matthew likes neutrals and Carla loves color and pattern, so they went with sandy quartz countertops and pale cabinets for him and a mosaic backsplash and speckled glass pendant lights for her. The kitchen is small, but Carla calls it her "workhorse" — a super-functional space with just enough room to cook for friends. "When I'm home," she says, "all I want to do is invite people over."
Photograph by Jim Franco