Have you been known to occasionally indulge in “Champagne [Papi] Wishes and Caviar Dreams”? (RIP, Robin Leach.) Say no more, fam, because Drake has once again come through with the extreme obnoxiousness you didn’t know you needed!
While the world is (hopefully) sheltering in place, Drake is showing off his new palace place in the May issue of Architectural Digest, giving us plebians a taste of the good life in his “50,000-square-foot ultra-luxe pleasure dome,” a project reportedly six years in the making, reports the magazine:
Remember the chintzy, pimped-out McMansions that were a staple of the long-running MTV series Cribs? The Toronto home of mega recording artist Aubrey Drake Graham is something else altogether. Measuring 50,000 square feet, with amenities such as an NBA regulation-size indoor basketball court crowned by a 21-square-foot pyramidal skylight, Drake’s astonishing domicile certainly qualifies as extravagant. But instead of vast expanses of cheap drywall and mountains of ungainly furniture upholstered with a hot glue gun, stately Drake Manor, as envisioned by Canadian architectural and interior designer Ferris Rafauli, is a marvel of old-world craftsmanship, constructed of limestone, bronze, exotic woods, and other noble materials. Every detail of the sprawling property has been meticulously conceived and executed. And there isn’t a Scarface poster in sight.
And yet, this joint—fondly known as “the Embassy”—is positively dripping with Tony Montana-energy. (Seriously, where’s the pet tiger, King?) Is it a hotel? No. A nightclub? Sometimes. A strip club? There’s probably one on the premises—but bottom line: leave it to Drake to both go big and go home.
“Because I was building it in my hometown, I wanted the structure to stand firm for 100 years. I wanted it to have a monumental scale and feel,” Drake says of his passion project. “It will be one of the things I leave behind, so it had to be timeless and strong,” he adds.
Funny, we were thinking more time capsule, as the Embassy feels a bit like a what would happen if the set designer of The Fifth Element was hired for a time-traveling caper that shuttled between the Roaring ‘20s and the Outrageous ‘80s—and maybe that was the goal, since AD reports designer Rafauli “describes the crazysexycool interiors as ‘modern Art Deco.’” (No really, they wrote “crazysexycool.”) And maybe that’s also why the Embassy made such ideal settings for the videos for “When to Say When”/“Chicago Freestyle” and “Toosie Slide.”
“It’s overwhelming high luxury,” says Drake. “That message is delivered through the size of the rooms and the materials and details of the floors and the ceilings. I wanted to make sure people can see the work I’ve put in over the years reflected from every vantage point.”
Umm...it’s overwhelming, for sure—if simultaneously disconcerting. You okay, Aubrey? Maybe spending too much time...in your feelings?
Call us haters, but we kinda hate it here—which makes it a good thing we will likely never set foot in the Embassy because we likely just aren’t high enough equipped to comprehend the true meaning of overwhelming luxury. And that’s okay, because who knew there was a place that felt more isolating than self-isolation, itself?