Standing in Madeon’s living room, it feels like his entire home is floating. The Hollywood Hills house is located at the top of a steep drive up from Los Angeles’ storied 101 Freeway, which rushes by far below. Built on an incline, its vertical architecture means at least a few steps up or down to get from room to room. The vast views are of hill after hill flanking the freeway, with houses tucked into them at intervals, and just beyond that is Universal Studios, with the spires of Hogwarts Castle acting as sentry. This home itself is not unlike a tower — an isolation tower, to be exact.
Madeon is in the process of buying this property, in which he has worked since early 2018. It will be the latest addition to the 25-year-old’s real estate portfolio, a far cry from his parents’ home in Nantes, France, where he continued to live during the frenzy created from his first single, the YouTube sensation ‘Pop Culture’. He was there during the campaign for his debut artist album, ‘Adventure’, his powerhouse single with Porter Robinson, ‘Shelter’, and its hugely successful ensuing tour. He paused in Los Angeles at the end of that tour, and never left.
“I’m a recluse,” he says, as he retreats to a sofa. “I don’t leave the house, pretty much ever, I work all the time,” he says. “I like the idea of feeling close to the action without having to engage in it. I use the analogy of when you’re a child and your parents are having a party downstairs and you’re in your bedroom falling asleep, hearing them having fun in the distance. It’s soothing. That’s what it feels like here. I don’t feel lonely, even though I’m alone.”