Sandra’s Adventures in Wonderland

Sometimes she must feel as if she fell down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world, but los angeles-based Sandra Costa takes her celebrity clients and multi-million-dollar building projects in her kiwi stride

Words Jane Turner  Photographs Matthew Williams

SANDRA COSTA USED TO BE a Playboy bunny. It’s easy to see why she would have been good as a Playboy bunny. All these years later she’s still tall and willowy with an artfully tousled blonde ponytail and big, round, guileless eyes. “I was the worst waitress in the world,” she says, “but I always got the biggest tips.”

Although born in the United States she was brought up in the Auckland suburb of Hillsborough and staunchly regards herself as a Kiwi, gleefully insisting her accent has been one of her greatest assets. At school, art and drama were her favourite subjects and she often played the lead in school musicals. “I always went in for a bit part and came out with the lead,” she says. The story of her life, actually.

After school Sandra worked as both a hairdresser and a fashion model before setting off on her big OE. But, never one to follow the crowd, she opted for America rather than Europe. And in Florida the 18-year-old became a Playboy bunny. She learned to walk in three-inch heels and a corset that wasn’t particularly revealing (just like a bathing suit, really) and quite soon she became the highest-paid bunny in Hugh Hefner’s warren of 19 Playboy clubs. “Recently an American magazine asked me what Playboy did for me and I said that Hefner instilled in me the idea that I could be and do anything I wanted.” Within a year Sandra was training other bunnies and she stayed with Playboy for another seven.

The next chapter in Sandra’s story begins when she walked into a shop that was full of furniture, the likes of which she’d never seen before – “cocktail tables that cost $5000” – created by London designer Ian Phillips. Fascinated by the interiors business, Sandra went to work for him and a new career opened up for her. “It’s all about timing,” she says. “Opportunity is all about recognizing what you are being offered and what you are going to do with it.”

In 1989 Sandra opened her own business, Sandra Costa Development. Now, from her Los Angeles base, she project-manages houses for some seriously rich and internationally famous clients. A licensed general contractor and architectural designer, she oversees every stage from building and remodelling to decorating and furnishing. “Sometimes I’m really happy that I’m spending someone else’s money because often I have no idea of how much a house is going to cost and when I’m buying I have no budget. This is the way I work. I buy it, I make it or I order it, I put it in the house and then I send the client a bill.”

Too discreet to reveal details, she does admit to having designed interiors for Pierce Brosnan, Britney Spears and champion boxer Oscar De La Hoya. Unusually, when a house is finished Sandra will sometimes lease it from her client and live in it herself for a few months. Projects recently finished or on the go are as varied as refurbishing a 14th-century French chateau, designing a house for herself in Los Angeles, a brownstone in Fort Lauderdale, a $16-million Malibu house and what she thinks may well be the highlight of her career – an 1800sqm house in Hong Kong for a wealthy Chinese actress. Sandra has put a team together and flies to Hong Kong every month for meetings. She expects the house will take three years to finish and says, “When I go there my client and I will talk about clothes and hats first of all and then we’ll talk about the house.”

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