WHERE ARE THEY LIVING?..

Carey's Lounge	Carey's Lounge	Carey's Lounge
Carey's Family Room	Carey's Lounge	Carey's Shoe Closet

Carey's Walk-In Closet	In-Style Cover

The In Style Home Spring 2006 issue takes us inside Mariah Carey's inner most sanctum.

At home with Mariah Carey

Written By James Patrick Herman
Photographed By - Andrew Macpherson

She climbed her way back top the top of the pop charts, but nothing's more satisfying to Mariah Carey, than coming home to her penthouse pad in Manhattan.

Glitterit sconces make the triplex "art-deco and Old Hollywoodish, the kind of place I dream about having when I was little." After her parents divorced, when she was 3, Carey and her siblings grew up living with their mother in 13 successive houses on Long Island, wich left her feeling "like the rug was literally being pulled out from under me. I remember saying to myself, 'I want to have a good life and feel secure.' I had to have faith. That's how I got over every obstacle along the way - by visualisnig and believing in something better."

During the early years of her career, Carey married music-industry titan, Tommy Mottola and had a taste of the world she once could only imagine, living on a majestic 50-acre estate outside N.Y.C (the couple later divorced). "Unfortunatelly this was a time when all I was alloved to do was sit there and pick out sconces," she says. "I can still spend hours talking about door handless." A remnant from that era, which sparked her passion for interior design, now anchors her informal family room: and ornate, hand carved cerry mantel piece featuring flowers, hearts and her trade mark emblam, a butterfly.

"This piece, took two and a half years to finish," Carey says. "It's a little garish, because of what the butterfly represents: freedom".

Both, extravagant and confortable, Carey's apartment reflects her hard-won maturity and indipendence in almost every corner. Hallmarks include glazed peach walls (they required eight coats of paint), a marble steam room with a waterbed (the humidity good for her voice), and a brand new Marrakech-inspired solarium that looks like something out of Arabian Nights. "After my roof garden is finished and I put a hot tub out there, I am going to call this room Chez Mimi," she says, referring to her nickname. "I won't go to smoky clubs anymore. I'll party with my posse here, and we'll watch the sun rise."

Surprisingly, her biggest intulgence looks anything but: a chipped white baby grand piano, which set her back $662,500 at a Christie's auction of Marilyn Monroe memorabilie. "I could have gotten the 'Happy Birthday Mr. Presedent' dress or whatever," Carey says, "but that would have represented Marilyn Monroe stardom, whereas the piano belonged to her mother and was a piece of her childhood."

 

* Carey likes to listen to music, in her recently completed Moroccan Style Lounge, on the triplex's top floor. "It's my favorite places to hang out," she says.

** Photograps in the family room are arranged by generation, "They illustrate who I am," says Carey, whose first initial is hand-painted on the floor (opposite bottom).

 

Her closets. The girl does love her shoes. "I have about 1,000 shoes."

Mariah Carey Opens Her Closet Doors

Take a peak inside Mariah Carey's closets, after the jump. Clothing is arranged by color and metarial, as well as in event spesific groupings. "I love watching Mommie Dearest, as a walk-in closet is climate."