Katie Holmes had her first taste of freedom on the stage in NY and she’s not quite ready to give it up yet. She may have banished her mother in law and Tom’s sister to the Scientology Celebrity Centre but it seems she’d prefer to keep them on the other coast instead of just out of her mansion. Katie is said to be looking for grand digs in NY suitable for a woman of her immense wealth and is supposedly considering a relocation. The only problem is that her husband, Tom Cruise, is said to be happy in LA and doesn’t want to move:

“She met with a Manhattan real estate agent to look at properties,” a friend reveals. “Katie wants to move to New York City and buy a place in the $10 million range.”

Though she, her husband, Tom Cruise, their daughter Suri, 2, and his kids, Isabella, 15, and Connor, 13, recently moved into a new $35 million mansion in Beverly Hills, Katie is determined to spend more time in NYC. “Katie doesn’t really love Beverly Hills,” the friend explains. Since Katie, 29, has already gotten great reviews for her Broadway turn, “she wants to continue the momentum and star in another play after this one wraps,” the friend adds.

But while Katie, who lived in New York before she met Tom, is thrilled about the prospect of living in the city, although [sic] Tom “is completely against the idea,” says the friend. While Tom already owns real estate in NYC, the couple is currently staying in the posh American Felt Building – but only until the January run of the show.

Tom, 46, is trying to talk Katie out of the New York move. He’s firmly entrenched in Hollywood and heads up the United Artists studio – and he has no desire to uproot the family. For Tom, who asked his mother and sister to move out of the Beverly Hills home in July in order to please Katie, relocating to New York seems out of the question.

[From In Touch, print edition, October 20, 2008]

These two are so rich that maybe it doesn’t mean much that Katie is looking for a big home in NY and it’s possible she just wants another home base there. Still, you have to wonder if their relationship is strained at all now that she’s tasted success – and freedom – apart from her husband. Remember how he set his whole family up in a nearby house when she was filming Mad Money? He’s not about to let her move to New York without him.

Katie and Suri are shown out in NY outside their apartment yesterday. Photo agency Fame notes that the photographers were kept at a distance by their bodyguards due to a rush on the family yesterday. It looks like Suri is still scared. There are also photos of them out shopping with little matching store bags. Credit: MARIO MAGNANI/bauergriffinonline.com