Prime Time.

By Jonathan Van Meter. Photographed by Craig McDean.

With two great new roles and a body that won't quit, Jennifer Aniston is reinventing what it means to be 40 and female in Hollywood.

Here she comes, in faded cutoffs and a tank top. Has there ever been a more casual star? A more unrepentant Southern California girl? I am standing in the midst of the dust and chaosthe clattering hammers, the buzzing sawsof the massive construction project that is Jennifer Aniston's sprawling new Beverly Hills home. It is midday in late September, and Aniston is picking her way through the site. As she heads toward me she looks comfortinglyalmost defiantlythe same as she always has. Long, sun-streaked hair. Check. Tanned yoga body. Check. Toe rings and hippie beads. Check. There will be no moody movie-star transformations, no fresh tattoos to prove how unpredictable she is.

When I arrived a few moments earlier, a big, genial security guy helped me park my car among all the construction vehicles and then took me to an office where a man named Phil introduced himself as Aniston's "estate manager." An elegant fellow with a British accent, he is a holdover from her only slightly more grand life with Brad Pitt, when they owned a 12,000-square-foot Normandy mansion not far from here and a big spread in Santa Barbara. "He's very . . . Phil, " says Aniston with a laugh. She stops for a second and, as she so often does, rethinks out loud. "Maybe we don't mention that I have an estate manager." And then: "He's more like the butler."

Meanwhile I am agape, trying to take in the scale of this unusual house; all 10,000 square feet are on one floor, and everything is of a surprising proportionthe rooms, the doors, even the doorknobs are bigger than you'd expect, especially for such a small person who will soon live here all alone. As we take a tour, Aniston points out a bathroom that looks as if it were designed for Wilt Chamberlain. The handles on her office door are enormous bronze mudras hands from Thailand. "I know there's a meaning to the positioning of the fingers," she says, "and I should know what it is, but these basically are meant to ward off evil spirits." Then she leads me down a fantastically wide hallway to the front doorsgiant twin slabs of bronze. "This is the best thing about this place," she says. "Look at the size of them! They're huge! And I love this little Wizard of Oz peephole." She opens the tiny door, peeks through, and says in a Munchkin voice, " No, she will not see you! " and then slams it shut.

The house was designed in 1970 by architect Hal Levitt, best known for the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. When Aniston bought it a couple of years ago, it was in the middle of a renovation that was nearly complete. But a closer inspection turned up structural problems, so she ripped everything out and started from scratch. What she thought was going to be a four-month project turned into a nearly two-year journey. She seems to be loving every minute of it. As the partner in her film-production company, Kristin Hahn, says, "She's not intimidated. She's like the foreman! She is overseeing every single decision."

The house itself suggested a decor, one that Aniston hired interior designer Stephen Shadley to help her execute and describes as "combo platter": Hawaiian lanai meets Balinese Zen palace. "It wanted to have that feeling that when you walked in you were able to throw your feet up and just be peaceful. But I also wanted it to feel . . . sexy." She narrows her eyes and shakes her hair for comic effect. "This is a sexy house!"