Some have plumbed Ian Parker's new New Yorker profile of George Clooney for its reference to the megastar's use of a spritzable salad dressing called "Balsamic Breeze," but what caught our eye was the discussion of Clooney's Hollywood Hills home, which last year was "largely remodelled" by his longtime friend Rande Gerber, who Parker describes as "the owner and operator of many fancy bars, and the husband of Cindy Crawford, the model." What does chez Clooney look like?

The result is not extravagant, but it carries the hint of a hotel steakhouse under bold new management: dark wood, beige curtains, a chandelier. According to both men, Gerber made all the decisions, without a word of consultation: everything from the size of the swimming pool to the framed photograph of Steve McQueen in the living room. In Clooney's screening room, behind DVDs of Once and All the President's Men, I saw a row of tall glass jars containing packaged candies, which I took to be a personal quirk until I read that Rande Gerber keeps packaged candies in tall glass jars in his offices in New York and Malibu.