Designing Your Home With a Photographer’s Eye

What type of project would you be willing to take on to realize your dream space? For Los Angeles–based photographer Magdalena Wosinska, it was tackling the renovation of an adobe home, which had stood abandoned for the better part of 50 years.

Globetrotting is part of Magdalena’s day job. Her understated, pared-down aesthetic has been featured in The New York Times and The New Yorker, and she’s worked with brands like Vans and Levi’s. One week she might be shooting a campaign in Europe; the next she may be filming a commercial in Portland. And while she’s become a keen traveler, she was on the hunt for a reprieve—a place to recover and reflect. Having visited friends in the desert, she decided to start searching the area for a place of her own.

In 2015, two years into viewing homes (and not having her bids accepted), Magdalena was shown a property by her realtor that was an original, yet vacant, 1930s adobe at the foot of the Sawtooth Mountains in Pioneertown in the desert east of L.A. "We go into the house and it’s completely abandoned," Magdalena recalls. At first, she couldn’t look past the detritus that had piled up over the last 50 or so years—though there were some treasures. "I found a first edition of Dracula," she says.

Having converted a 1911 hunting lodge for her primary residence, she initially wasn’t keen on another full fixer upper. But what the adobe home lacked in turnkey ease, it made up for in other amenities. "I wanted a good view, close to the rocks, and a lot of privacy," she explains.

Magdalena was still contemplating the home when her realtor shared that another offer had been put on it, provoking her to move on the structure and the surrounding 10 acres. She hit several snags unique to desert living, like securing a mortgage—adobe homes are sanctioned differently than contemporary ones—and helping inspectors actually find the off-GPS property. Once it was hers, there was applying for permits, cleaning out much of the home herself, and meeting with various contractors. The project stalled.

Magdalena finally finished the full project in 2020. She put an addition onto the adobe and also added a lap pool, sauna, outdoor stage, and deck with enough handmade tables to seat 40 to the property. Lastly, she updated an existing well house to serve as a moon tower, adding a small bathroom for functionality and a ladder so friends could climb to the roof that’s adorned with comfy cushions and an unrivaled view of the sky. When visitors aren’t communing up there, the top platform also functions as an ideal photo shoot backdrop. The entire property has also become a venue for self-care and community, earning the name Desert Milk Adobe, which speaks to the home’s all-white exterior and overall nurturing energy.

And while Magdalena uses the home as a retreat, she occasionally rents some of the space to fellow photographers, a full circle. It should be no surprise, then, that the home has garnered interest, being featured in Dwell’s sister publication, Domino and the MAX series, "The Cabin Chronicles," among others.

So how did she go from barely breaking ground to getting the finished product into the world? Below, learn more about how she used her photographer’s eye in shaping the home—and how you can, too.

Literally Camp On Your Property

With the project stalled and nowhere to stay on the grounds, Magdalena camped out there often to learn the personality of the space, fundamental to the photographer. What was originally a setback ultimately became a gift. "The longer it took to build the house, the better I understood the land, the light, the wind currents, the sun, the snow, the crazy dust storms," Magdalena says. With this knowledge, she gained perspective on the materials needed to endure the extreme weather while complementing the adobe structure. "The best thing and the biggest challenge was finding out how to build a structure that’s not going to move," she says, as adobes can slouch over time. "Like concrete, solid, metal roof, no shingles, just super solid."