Soledad O’Brien is a woman’s woman—the kind we’d all like to claim as our sister. She’s smart, funny, successful, and drop-dead gorgeous. More important, she knows better than to rub it in. For example, the secret to her youthful looks: “A really good concealer and good lighting in the studio,” quips the 41-year-old anchor and special correspondent for CNN: Special Investigations Unit. See why we women love her? But as high as modesty rates on her list of virtues, it trails perspective—an attribute that not only rules her life, but the design of the loft she shares in Manhattan with her husband, investment banker Brad Raymond, and their four young children (twin 3-year-old boys and two daughters who are 5 and 6).

“The other morning I knocked the heel off one of my shoes at work and had to spend the rest of the day hobbling around.” (Don’t you love it?) “But that’s nothing in the scheme of things,” declares the Harvard grad. “I think, I have four healthy children, and everything falls into place. People who let small things affect them need to look at the world and gain some perspective.”

Photograph: Kevin Lein
Text: Candace Manroe

Design:
Interior designer: Bradley Stephens, Bradley Stephens Interior Design, 155 W. 20th St., #5E, New York, NY 10011; 646/281-8640, bradleystephens.com.