At Home with Kevin Dillon

He’s got a hit HBO show, two Emmy nods under his belt, and a role in the family comedy Hotel for Dogs. But what really makes Kevin Dillon want to brag?

Flourishing orange trees, a yard he helped landscape, paintings he bought on eBay and his two leading ladies, wife Jane and daughter Ava.

At 43, Dillon is a down-to-earth homebody who would rather hunker down on his Malibu spread than hit the Hollywood clubs preferred by his Entourage alter ego, Johnny Drama Chase. His real-life entourage consists of stay-at-home mom Jane Stuart, 30, their daughter Ava, 2, and Amy, his 18-year-old daughter from a previous relationship (who often visits from the East Coast).

I feel like I’ve done it all, so there’s nothing really more for me to do in that department. I just don’t have any desire, says Dillon, looking out over the solar-heated pool, hot tub, and yard filled with palm and citrus trees. I want to enjoy the days.

Dillon says he fell in love with Malibu while filming scenes for Entourage – ironic, as his character on the show can’t stand the place. When we were coming out here to shoot, I was like, ‘It’s so quiet and so calm,’ he says. It doesn’t feel like the city at all.

He fell for the house as soon as he saw the fragrant orange trees that line the driveway. “We’re from cold-weather places,” says Dillon, who hails from Mamaroneck, N.Y. (Jane is from Scotland). “Just to see orange trees and all these bougainvillea plants … I’ve always wanted dogs, and a yard, and now I’ve got them.”

On a casual tour of the three-bedroom, Mediterranean-style home where he nests with Jane, Ava, and bulldogs Brady and Belle, Dillon pointed out some of his favorite features.

His self-described man cave is a garage he converted into a home theater with a state-of-the-art golf simulator. He also shows off the coral reef tank he lovingly tends to in the guest house (where his close-knit, including actor brother Matt, 44, can stay when they’re in town), nautical paintings he bought on the Internet, a replica of James Dean’s Porsche Spider, and a wooden treehouse where Ava can hide out when she’s older.

He also loves the home’s open-air living room (with a corner devoted to Ava’s toys) and the kitchen, where Jane – a former model he married in 2006 after two years together – whips up Shepherd’s pie and pasta Bolognese. Married life, he says, “is great,” adding that Jane is ” a great mom – very nurturing.”

As Dillon begins shooting season six next month, he’s counting his blessings. These are tough times, and I’m really lucky to be working right now, he says. I’m a lucky guy.”