Alexa Ray Joel, Downtown Girl, Is Surrounded by Memories

Alexa Ray Joel was apologizing. She just had her apartment floors done, and was asking her guests to take off their shoes. There was not a hint of the entitlement one might expect from someone who has been famous all her life. Over the mantelpiece in Alexa Ray Joel’s living room, for example, is a beautifully carved name plaque from a very famous boat bearing her name. Billy Joel, her father, immortalized it in his song, “The Downeaster ‘Alexa.’”

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On a quiet street in downtown Manhattan’s NoLIta neighborhood, Ms. Joel’s apartment is casually strewn with family heirlooms from her famous parents. Antique horse paintings are from her mother, the apparently ageless supermodel Christie Brinkley. A music room has a beautiful Steinway piano from her father covered with a red and gold embroidered shawl he brought her from Italy. The room’s décor — red walls and curtains — is all her own. “It is the grandmother’s apartment in the movie ‘Gigi.’ It took a second to get the red right,” Ms. Joel explained. “I wanted everything scarlet red for passion.”

Ms. Joel, 32, wearing leather pants, spike heels and a high-collared white lace blouse, is a mix of rock ’n’ roll modern and ethereal Romanticism. A singer-songwriter, she has performed cabaret at the Café Carlyle, with an eclectic repertoire from “Bye Bye Birdie” to “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”

She is writing a new song, “The Real Thing,” inspired by her recent engagement to the downtown restaurateur Ryan J. Gleason. “It’s like early Mariah Carey, a sweet pop ballad,” she said.

Last year, Ms. Joel did something she had never envisioned herself doing: She appeared in Sports Illustrated’s “swimsuit” issue. It was a family project; she posed with her mother and sister Sailor Brinkley Cook. “It was liberating, almost like me coming out saying, “This is me, I celebrate myself and my body just for who I am, like every other woman should,” Ms. Joel said.

These are edited excerpts from a conversation with Ms. Joel on a sunny winter day with jazzy music playing in the background.

Every piece in your apartment has a family connection or memory. Tell me about the painting over the bed of a woman looking out the window to the water.

It reminds me of Matisse, my favorite artist. I’m not sure who the painter is. It was given to me my grandmother, Marge — Marjorie Marie Brinkley. My mom’s mom. It’s a bittersweet story. When my grandmother — I was really close to her — was sick and not feeling well, before she passed, she said, “I want you to have this because it reminds me of you.” I have this hanging right over my head, because I want her with me always.

You seem to like art where the viewer is invited to supply the context, or story, of what’s going in the picture.

I do. I do. It’s because I like to personalize things. In this one, I always see a “Pride and Prejudice” Jane Austen character. She’s dreaming and she’s looking out. And that’s kind of me. My head is always in the clouds.

This shadow box — a framed dollhouse room with a woman, red curtains and a fortuneteller’s globe — is so eerie and mysterious. It looks Victorian. Where is it from?

No one knows too much about it. My mom got this for me from an old flea market in the Hamptons when I was 16 years old. I was in a phase when I was obsessed — I still am — with fortunetellers and psychics. The piece has a fortuneteller and haunted, ghostlike reflection hanging on the wall. I always imagine this woman as living in New Orleans. And around the same time, my father was in New Orleans and got me the crystal ball on the shelf below. Everyone knew I was on this psychic kick and my parents are so thoughtful.

The lamp in the room fell just few years ago, but I see it as being a part of the story: The piece is haunted, and the magical spells were so powerful that it caused a ruckus. I’m very kooky with this stuff. My mother teases me, “You are more polished, but you are like 20 steps from a ‘Grey Gardens’ moment.” It’s true.