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Mariah Carey is parting with her longtime Tribeca apartment, which was designed by famed decorator Mario Buatta. With an asking price of $27 million, the opulent 12,700-square-foot penthouse—and its bathtub—is particularly well known for being the subject of a famous episode of MTV Cribs.
The Grammy-winning singer and “Queen of Christmas” began assembling the triplex apartment in 1999, snapping up separate units for a reported $9 million and merging them into one massive residence. In the Cribs episode, Carey declares that the condo is her “first-ever” apartment. Perched in a 1929 Art Deco tower at 90 Franklin Street, the eight-bedroom home has never been on the market before.
©Core/ Photo by Evan Joseph and Tim Waltman / Evan Joseph Studios.
The opulent entry foyer.
Buatta, affectionately known as the “Prince of Chintz,” spared no expense when crafting the interiors. “I wanted to create a background for Mariah’s own glamour,” he told Architectural Digest in 2001, after completing work on the residence. “She exudes glamour—and sex appeal, too. She has incredible charisma.” Indeed, the sprawling apartment includes opulent touches like bronze-inlaid limestone flooring and silver-leaf doors, but surprisingly little chintz.
Carey told Cribs that she worked with the decorator to deliberately select a warm, soothing color palette that wasn’t “jarring” and didn’t skimp on gloss. “Enough jarring things happen to me on a daily basis,” she laughs. At the time, the apartment was decorated with photos of Carey with various celebrity friends and keepsakes such as Marilyn Monroe’s piano. Butterflies, a Carey signature, figured prominently into the design, including on kitchen tiles—although it’s not clear if they are still present.
©Core/ Photo by Evan Joseph and Tim Waltman / Evan Joseph Studios.
The private roof terrace features sweeping views.
What does remain, however, is the unit’s palatial amount of private outdoor space: a roof terrace measuring 1,100 square feet in total, with sweeping views of the skyline and Hudson River. The apartment also comes with a gym, steam room, sunroom, and private elevator landing. (The floor plan also features a roughly 600-square-foot “wardrobe room/bedroom.”)
The listing notes that while all three floors are being offered in the sale, the lower level can function as an independent unit below an owner’s duplex.
In terms of her other real estate, the “We Belong Together” singer was most recently renting a Jacobean manor in Connecticut for $75,000 a month. Carey also had a nine-bedroom Atlanta mansion, which she sold for $4.3 million in 2023.
The penthouse is listed for $27 million with Emily Beare and Lexi Alper of CORE.
Geoffrey Montes is an associate editor at ELLE Decor with a serious love for all things real estate and design. Before that, he worked at Architectural Digest, Galerie, and Preservation magazines, covering everything from jaw-dropping listings to world-famous architects and design events like Salone del Mobile and Homo Faber.