Rita Ora has angered her Camden neighbours over plans to build a large gym in the garden of her £7.5m home.
The 34-year-old singer bought the Grade II listed house in Primrose Hill four years ago and hopes to reconstruct the property’s sunken garden, which has been there for almost 150 years.
Ora’s plans incensed her north London neighbours who dubbed the modern gym “out of keeping” with the heritage property and shared concerns over damage to the garden’s ecosystem.
In an appeal to Camden Council, the residents wrote: “Ironically, the current owner has gone on record to say they wanted to preserve and honour the heritage of this sunken garden which they say is a sanctuary for butterflies and is also a sanctuary for many birds, including robins, herons and even peacocks [that] have been sighted there over the years.
“To destroy the natural ecology in order to build a modern gym is entirely out of keeping with the heritage and calm of this particular listed property itself,” the appeal continued.
Ora’s neighbours’ concerns come after the singer featured in Architectural Digests’s “Open Door” series in 2023, in which she called the garden her “little slice of heaven”.
Elsewhere in the video, she noted the number of butterflies that frequented the space and said at the time she’d wanted to keep the area as natural as possible.
“I didn’t want to put too much electrical stuff in this part because I really felt like the whole point of this sunken bit of garden is to be a garden,” she said.
Ora’s new plans to convert the garden into a large gym have triggered concerns the building will emit light and sound pollution in the garden’s delicate ecosystem.
The Independent has contacted Ora’s representatives for comment.
In 2013, it was reported that Ora was looking for a new home after her loud house parties had triggered numerous noise complaints from her neighbours at her previous London home.
One elderly resident of the gated community told the Sunday Mirror at the time: “My family and I have lived in this quiet cul-de-sac for 35 years and are not used to this. My children know who Rita is but I don’t… I don’t want any loud parties.”
Ora rose to fame when she featured on DJ Fresh’s single “Hot Right Now” in 2010. Two years later, her debut studio album “Ora” landed her two UK number-one singles “R.I.P” and “How We Do (Party)”.
