Five portraits by Gordon Parks, the photographer acclaimed for documenting African American life throughout the Civil Rights Era, frame the foyer inside Usher’s gracious Atlanta home. The singer loved the irony of making the famous 1956 photo of a Black woman and child outside the “colored entrance” of a department store in Mobile, Alabama, one of the first pieces of art visitors encounter when entering the home of a Black superstar. “I’m rebranding things,” he says—aware that not everyone will appreciate the gesture. “We cannot forget our history. But what we can reframe is being able to move forward.”
For more than 30 years, Usher’s music has defied genre conventions, defining present and future trends, even as it draws on cultural markers from the past. That same spirit runs throughout his home, which he designed alongside longtime friend and collaborator Nicole Fuller.
“We looked at this photo and decided this is the inspiration—in palette, in feeling, in moodiness, in tone and texture,” Fuller says of the Parks portrait. “It was our first moment of inspiration for the story of this home.”
Across the spacious, elegantly proportioned, white-brick Georgian-style house, Usher and Fuller have transformed the otherwise classic, restrained architecture into a creative hub where the singer, his wife, Jennifer Goicoechea Raymond, and children—sons Usher V, Naviyd, and Sire, and daughter Sovereign—can revere the relics of the past while imagining future ones.
The superstar has collected contemporary art for most of his adult life, but his passion is for preserving the work of Black artists. He recalls commissioning his first piece of art at 21 from street artist and muralist Retna. From there, he started visiting museums and studying the art hung on the walls of the luxury hotels he frequented. “That’s when my lens changed, that’s when my creative eye opened, [and] that’s when I started to be more experimental with my music,” he says.
In the living room, Usher reinvented a mundane item—a plastic-covered sofa—transforming it from the pristine, off-limits furniture once revered by Black elders like his mom to an inviting, multigenerational conversation starter. “This is my art,” he says of the custom sofa created with the help of the Atlanta-based Bjork Studio. Yes, it makes the classic crunchy sound when you sit down.
Across the hall, in a lavender family room, a vintage TV installation by Jennifer stands in a corner playing hazy family videos and iconic cultural moments such as James Brown’s famously bizarre 1988 CNN interview on a loop. Acrylic-painted art by Rick Lowe hangs above a custom plum-colored velvet sectional, stretching beyond the wall molding. “Creatively, they say, you don’t color over the lines,” Usher says. “Well, we do here.”
For all the lauded and emerging artists on display in every room—from Romare Bearden and Julian Schnabel to Rashid Johnson, Lauren Halsey, and Tyler Mitchell—Usher didn’t want the home to feel like a museum. “It’s not like the most expensive piece wins the best wall. That’s not the case in this house,” he says.
Instead, he’s worked to infuse his family into each space, including paintings by his son Naviyd. Caramel suede panels line the walls of a room that holds the piano of Usher’s grandmother, Tina, alongside a cross-shaped window encasing dried flowers from her funeral. In the breakfast room, a troweled concrete wall bears each family member’s handprints—including the paw prints of their dog, Scarlett. In the pool room, the design of his chin tattoo—by famed tattoo artist Dr. Woo—has been enlarged into a ceiling mural.
In the “gentleman’s room,” the singer smokes cigars and listens to music amid touchstones from across his career: a throwback shot of a shirtless Usher by photographer Steven Klein, his eight Grammys, one of his BET Awards, a jewel-encrusted football honoring his 2024 Super Bowl halftime performance, and a sculpture of rotting cherries—a nod to a viral bit from his most recent tour, when he fed cherries to fans in the audience.
Emulate the musician’s style with an editor-curated collection of furniture and decor inspired by his Atlanta home.
This is the fourth house Usher has designed with Fuller. She credits the singer with being a hands-on creative who isn’t afraid to get into the minuscule details of design. “He will get out a tape measure,” she says. “He’s all in.”
When they began work on this home four years ago, Usher wanted a space where his children could dream and play. There’s whimsy throughout, including a Studio Drift dandelion chandelier that hangs above the dining table, its seeds daring guests to blow them throughout the room (“I don’t tell them that,” Usher says of his kids, laughing). Plushies from the Raymond children’s personal collection—lions, frogs, pandas, and other stuffed animals—line the wall leading to a vibrant pink-and-blue playroom where the kids can perform on a small stage before leaping into a nearby foam pit. Naviyd’s room features a Jeff Koons print and a drawing of Michael Jackson’s signature stance made by the late pop star himself, alongside more teenager-friendly touches: skateboards and the cover of Billie Eilish’s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? displayed on a shelf. Daughter Sovereign’s room has her own art—butterflies, clouds, rainbows, and ice cream cones—painted on the ceiling, along with paintings by Justin Bieber, Usher’s late stepson Kile, and his eldest son, Usher V. Kids’ rooms are often Fuller’s favorite to design, she says, and she rejects the notion that precious art can’t be included. “Art is meant to be lived with,” she declares.
The adults have their own spaces, too: a hookah lounge for Jennifer, a golf-simulator room for Usher, plus a barbershop, a basketball court, and a yoga deck. The couple’s bedroom, in soothing textures and blush tones, is both inviting and relaxing, every wall and window draped floor to ceiling in fabric that matches the softness of their custom upholstered headboard and Kelly Wearstler nightstands. A work by Rashid Johnson lends an unexpected burst of red to a sitting area.
Despite touring steadily over the past five years, Usher had some downtime earlier this year. “I had surgery on my knee, so it gave me a lot of time to be able to just be home and get myself better,” he says. Now healed, he’s back on the road, co-headlining a stadium tour with Chris Brown that runs through December.
Throughout the property, Usher has carved out places to rest and reflect, among them a mirrored room with Anthony James’s sculpture Snub Cube (Solar Black) and a golden bench and chair by the late Virgil Abloh. The sculpture and mirrors throw back images that appear infinite—a visual stand-in for the singer’s outlook on life. Outside, near the pool, a Peace Head sculpture by the Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara offers a space for contemplation. However far the road takes him, this is the place Usher has made to come home to.
This story appears in the September issue. Never miss a story when you subscribe to AD.