CLOSER TO HOME

The TV host and lifestyle guru found the perfect place to start over

Lifestyle guru Tracey Edmonds welcomes Closer to her classy Beverly Hills abode.

Ibought this house in 2004, just as my ex-husband [R&B star Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds] and I were going through a divorce,” Tracey Edmonds, 51, reveals to Closer. “I was a single mom restarting my life with two young boys — one was only 2! — so my main thing was making sure we were safe.”

The five-bedroom, six-bath Mediterranean home Tracey found in a gated Beverly Hills community fit the bill and then some. “My kids feel safe playing out front,” she says of her sons Dylan, now 16, and Brandon, 21 (who’s here when he’s not at college). “It even has a community center with a basketball court! But the thing that got me was the view from my backyard. Waking up, I’m inspired by all the trees, hills and flowers. It all just sets my day off on the right note.”

A love of nature inspired the former Daytime Emmy–winning Extra co-host to found her new lifestyle, health and wellness brand, AlrightNow. And the half-acre spread she sometimes shares with her Dallas-based beau of six years, CBS football analyst Deion Sanders, 50, is an idyllic place for her to host company parties and practice what she preaches: a regimen that includes yoga and exercise, which she does next to her spacious outdoor pool and Jacuzzi.

But when Tracey moved in, she didn’t want to see too much nature. “It was a lot more ‘country’ when I purchased it,” she says, which makes sense when you learn she bought it from Creedence Clearwater Revival founder John Fogerty (“Born on the Bayou”), who she believes built the house. “The living room and office had a joint wall that shared a giant fish aquarium,” she recalls with a smile. “It was just a little too much for me.”

So while she loved the “comfortable fancy” architecture, she rented an apartment while completing a six-month renovation. “I pretty

much redid everything — put in hardwood floors, redid all the carpets, added Venetian plaster to the walls and ‘creamed it out’ with creamy colors, as I like to say.”

Tracey handled the decorating all by herself. “Some women love clothes shopping,” she says. “My thing is to shop for my house!” Especially on trips overseas, as seen in the exotic decor. “I’ll take my kids on all kinds of adventures, and it’s nice to say, ‘I got this in China,’ or wherever. Like the books in the library I picked up in France… but I don’t speak a word of French, so I haven’t read them!”

Her favorite space in the 8,245-square-foot house is the family room, where she enjoys watching movies with her kids or having business meetings for projects like the onehour drama she’s now producing for BET.

So what does she love most about the house? “Everything! I’m on a hilltop that’s peaceful and feel I’m away from the city, even though it’s only a five-minute drive,” she shares. “I feel like it’s my sanctuary.”

— Reporting by Steve Gidlow

“I really feel we have a good, happy family energy here.” —Tracey (with Dylan, left, and Brandon)

“We’ve had a lot of parties out in the backyard for birthdays, baby showers….”

“I could pretend that I cook, but I don’t!” — though she can whip up a good breakfast and tacos.

Check out Tracey’s new lifestyle, health and wellness site, AlrightNow.com. Her living room is gorgeous, but she can only “think of, maybe, five big occasions when I’ve used it.”

“I looked at maybe six homes, but as soon as I saw this one, I knew it was it!” Tracey tells Closer.

“It’s just a tranquil space,” Tracey says of her home.

“I can make a few things, like my smoothies,” she shares. “That dragon on the table takes two people to move. And we have to, or people are talking into the dragon!” She loves her “grand, sweeping staircase.”