Norah Jones Eat Pray Love House
Photo of Norah Jones via Wikipedia. Photo of 172 Pacific Street by Barbara Eldredge

Famous musician and Bed Stuy native Norah Jones is renovating the sweet Pacific Street stable she bought last fall. The home’s gorgeous rustic interior is famous for a cameo in the film Eat, Pray, Love, but changes are afoot.

When Brownstoner recently walked by the late 1850s Romanesque Revival-style home, it was immediately clear that something was going on — namely, a lot of construction work.

Permits reveal that the singer’s architect — Ben Baxt of Baxt Ingui Architects — is  converting the two-family home into a single-family and removing the existing rear addition, including the ground-floor kitchen, bedroom, and solarium as well as an extension of the second-floor living room.

Baxt Ingui has designed a new rear addition for 172 Pacific Street, featuring a full-height door and sliding glass door on the ground floor and two pairs of French doors with Juliette balconies on the second floor. Six skylights will also be installed along with roof access and railings set back from the view of the street, among other changes.

Landmarks has fully approved the proposed renovation, commenting that “the rear of the building has no significant architectural features that would be lost as a result of the reconstruction.” Based on the information in the permits, it does not appear changes to the front facade are planned — despite the plywood over the front door.

Norah Jones Eat Pray Love
Photo by Barbara Eldredge

With its arches and central gable, the former stable is an early example of theRomanesque Revival style, according to the historic district designation report. Below, photos and a floor plan show the configuration of the interior when Jones bought it.

Jones, who purchased the carriage house for $6.25 million in 2015, is no stranger to the process of renovating a landmarked Brooklyn home. Brownstoner readers will recall the singer’s controversial window choice for a redesign of her historic 166 Amity Street house. The Cobble Hill Association was “up in arms” over the LPC’s approval for those windows, calling them “historically inconsistent and structurally dubious,” as we reported at the time.

Jones, the daughter of a concert producer and famous sitar player Ravi Shankar, spent her early years in Bed Stuy before moving to Texas with her mother. She returned to Brooklyn in 2009, when she bought the house on Amity Street. (She also briefly owned an apartment in Manhattan, according to the News.)

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