Considered the greatest memorabilia sale of all time, the epic Freddie Mercury auctions held in London last September achieved a very impressive sum of $50.8 million. From the rock 'n' roll musician's Yamaha Grand piano to his Tiffany & Co. moustache comb, over 1,500 lots from Garden Lodge, his home in London, sold at Sotheby's in a six-part sale. Garden Lodge, and its contents, were left to Mary Austin, one of Mercury's closest friends, upon his death in 1991. Now, Garden Lodge itself is on the market for offers in excess of £30 million (about $38 million) at Knight Frank.
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Garden Lodge was built between 1908 and 1909 in the Kensington neighborhood of London for an artistic couple, painters Cecil Rea and Constance Halford Rea. It was designed in the Neo-Georgian style with eight bedrooms and a studio space on a leafy acre of land, enclosed by an eight-foot high wall to ensure privacy.
After the deaths of Cecil and Constance Rea in 1935 and 1938 respectively, the residence was purchased by Tomás Harris, a British art dealer and M15 intelligence officer during World War II. It was then owned by Peter Wilson, also a member of the British Intelligence and the chairman of Sotheby's. Later, the Hoare family owned the home and sold the house to Freddie Mercury in 1980 for £500,000.
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Mercury lived at the home for the last 10 years of his life. He considered it his "country house" in the center of London and worked with interior designer Robin Moore Ede to create a warm, idyllic escape that displayed his bold and whimsical taste. The original artist studio became Mercury's drawing room, where he placed the Yamaha Grand piano at which he composed Bohemian Rhapsody. The piano sold at Sotheby's for $2.1 million in 2023. The walls were painted a vibrant yellow and embellished by gilded cornices, and artwork by the likes of Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse decorated his dining room. His sitting room opened up into elegant Japanese-inspired gardens filled with blooming magnolia trees, flowers, and a freeform pond.
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He spent the last few months of his life exclusively at home before his death on November 24, 1991, at Garden Lodge at the age of 45 from the complications of HIV/AIDS. Since then, Garden Lodge has become a pilgrimage site for Mercury fans, who have decorated the outer wall with graffiti messages to the singer. Mary Austin, his former girlfriend and close friend, inherited the house and has lived there with her family for over 30 years. She put it on the market in late February 2024, opening the doors for the next chapter of Garden Lodge's intriguing story.
"This house has been the most glorious memory box, because it has such love and warmth in every room," reflected Mary Austin. "It has been a joy to live in and I have many wonderful memories here. Now that it is empty, I’m transported back to the first time we viewed it. Ever since Freddie and I stepped through the fabled green door, it has been a place of peace, a true artist’s house, and now is the time to entrust that sense of peace to the next person.”
