Grammy Award winner Jackson executive-produced her latest album, The Velvet Rope, with Elizondo. Below: Jackson, with her four dogs, sits before the fireplace. The carved figures on the mantel are part of her African art collection. She had interior walls knocked down to create spacious rooms.

"Very organic is the feeling we wanted," says Janet Jackson of the Malibu residence she shares with video director Rene' Elizondo, Jr. Below: Stone, wood and natural fabrics bring a coastal atmosphere into the living area. Henry Munyaradzi's sculpture Spirit of the Rock stands in the foreground.

"Ever since I was a kid, I'd always wanted a beach house. It was a dream that never left me," says Janet Jackson. "So one day I finally decided, that was it, I was going to do it." And thus the singer, songwriter, dancer and actress went out and found the "perfect" beach house on her first day of looking for one. Well, almost perfect. This house was dark, with tiny windows and view-destroying interior brick walls, and it featured design elements that owed more to 1960s Las Vegas than to any awareness of sand and sea. But to say that Jackson wanted a beach house since childhood doesn't quite convey the intensity of her need for the soothing rhythms of the tides. When her brother Jermaine sold the beach house where Janet, Michael and some of the other Jackson family members spent their summers, the Grammy Award-winning recording artist (Control, Rhythm Nation: 1814 and her newest release, The Velvet Rope) bought a wave machine to help her sleep.

"And every time the technology changed and they improved the sound quality, I'd buy that one too," she recounts. "I'd even bring them on tour with me. What to do, however, about making an actual beach house out of this house on the beach? Jackson and her boyfriend and collaborator, video director Rene' Elizondo, Jr., already had a Mediterranean-style residence in Orange County,but both were only recent converts to home decorating.