The New Orleans Fire Department responded to a fire on Wednesday night (July 21) at a mansion believed to be owned by Beyoncé and Jay-Z. Authorities announced Thursday (July 22) that the fire has been classified as arson after police responded to a call about a “suspicious person” around the time the fire broke out on Harmony Street in the city's Garden District.
“The report for this incident is still pending approval, so we cannot provide additional details at this time,” the New Orleans police spokesperson told NBC News in an emailed statement.
Authorities have not released additional information about how the fire started or what led them to classify it as arson.
“If they didn’t get there when they did, it could have been much worse,” a fire department spokesperson told The New York Post. “It’s a historic home.” According to reports, the fire took nearly two hours to extinguish.
Property records of the Orleans Parish and Louisiana state records reportedly list the "Drunk in Love" singer’s Parkwood Entertainment LLC as the owner of the property, which was once valued at $2.4 million. Representatives for the power couple didn’t respond to the outlet’s request for comment.
The mansion spans 13,2000 square feet and was originally built in 1925 as a church and later turned into a ballet school. Records indicate that Sugarcane Park, the LLC listed for Parkwood Entertainment in New York City, purchased the mansion in 2015, as reported by local media outlets at the time.
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