Eat, pray, list!
Author Elizabeth Gilbert, whose readers have followed her journey from “Eat, Pray, Love” — which became a 2010 film starring Julia Roberts — to this year’s “All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation,” has re-listed her Gramercy Park home for $1.19 million.
It was asking $1.49 million early this year. She paid $1.69 million for it in 2017, according to property records — so she will be selling it at a loss.
In a moving interview, Gilbert told Gimme Shelter that the home was her sanctuary and writing cocoon while she recovered from the loss of her love, Rayya Elias. Gilbert hopes it will creatively nurture the next person who lives there too.
“I bought the apartment right before my partner Rayya died [of cancer],” Gilbert said. “I knew that it was going to be the place where I was going to heal from her death and live and learn how to live alone, and she saw it right before she died.”
“It’s kind of something we set up together,” Gilbert added. “Rayya said she wanted to picture where I was going to be, so she slept there one night, which I really felt was like a benediction. I knew when we left that when I came back, I would be coming back alone.”
Elias — who had many talents — was a Syria-born Douglas Elliman broker, as well as an author, a filmmaker, a hairdresser and a musician.
The sun-filled one-bedroom, one-bath home is at 224 E. 17th St., which is also known as 1 Rutherford Place. It was built in 1855 as a townhouse, and it’s where Gilbert wrote her 2019 novel, “City of Girls.”
“The apartment in that novel is based on this apartment, where my character late in life finds a place in the Gramercy area and settles down for the rest of her life,” Gilbert said. “That was going to be my intention too. Then COVID happened, I left New York and moved out to the country [in New Jersey] and found that I didn’t really want to come back, which I think is probably a pretty common story. Life has taken a different turn.”
Gut-renovated, the classic prewar co-op features striking oversize casement windows and white oak floors.
The second-floor spread comes with an elegant open living and dining room, and a windowed kitchen with a wine cooler.
The apartment, Gilbert said, “was like a nest. It’s such a romantic space, with these windows overlooking Rutherford Place, which is this tiny little corner of New York that even people who live in the neighborhood don’t know what it is. It was very magical to be there in my grief.”
Gilbert says she is in the “post-beauty” phase of her life, living “like a 60-year-old dude” with close-cropped/shaved hair in comfortable clothes and shoes. She’s spending the time in a home converted from an old church that she has owned for two decades in New Jersey, spending more time traveling, to destinations including Costa Rica.
That’s why, she said, it was time to “let the apartment go.”
“It served its purpose and it sheltered me during a really delicate time and moment in my life, and maybe it will shelter somebody else and inspire someone else because it’s also a very good place to write,” Gilbert said.
Gilbert said she bought the apartment from an architect who gut-renovated the apartment and was very intentional about maximizing its space. But while she was renovating, the architect heard a voice telling her that she was designing the space for a writer.
“When I showed up, she said, ‘Oh, there you are. I was wondering who the writer was that I was making this for was!’ So of course there is a very romantic, mystical part of me that is wondering who the next creative person who’s going to live there will be, using the light and the space to make their own projects. I’m very curious to find out,” Gilbert said.
“There’s great magic in the apartment,” she added. “It’s got great ju-ju.”
The main bedroom also features a casement window, plus built-ins, a large custom closet and a windowed-bath. There’s also a Lutron light system, lots of storage throughout the apartment and more storage in the basement along with laundry and bike storage.
The listing broker is Serhant’s Jessica Taylor, a cast member of the Netflix streaming series, “Owning Manhattan,” and Ravi Kantha, also of Serhant.
While Gilbert no longer lives in the city, she will be back on Sept. 9 as part of her book tour, speaking at the Great Hall at Cooper Union, 7 E. Seventh St., sponsored by the Strand.