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Is this real life? Or is it just fantasy to buy the home of Freddie Mercury? Now, someone might be ‘under pressure’ to buy the coveted home of one of music’s biggest icons. Garden Lodge, the Kensington home that once belonged to the late Queen frontman is on the market for £30 million. The Neo-Georgian home was first built in 1907 by architect Ernest Marshall. Built for the husband-wife artist duo Cecil Rea and Constance Halford, it was owned by several owners including Peter Wilson, the chairman of the auction house Sotheby’s.
When the house went on the market in 1980, Freddie Mercury immediately fell in love with the residence and bought it that same year. Over the next 11 years, he extensively renovated the house and it became his main home. He often referred to it as his ‘country house in Central London.’
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When Mercury tragically died of AIDS in 1991, he left the house to his close friend and onetime girlfriend Mary Austin (portrayed by Lucy Boynton in the Oscar-winning biopic Bohemian Rhapsody). She preserved the house and its various eclectic possessions as a tribute to her close friend.
Possessions that Mercury kept in the house were sold by Sotheby’s in September 2023. Before they were sold, the items were shown off at an exhibition Freddie Mercury: A World of His Own. Some of the items included outfits, draft lyrics of some of Queen’s most famous songs and even his prized Yamaha Grand piano.
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Even without its significance in musical history, Garden Lodge is sure to bring ‘a kind of magic’ to its new owner. Its dining room still keeps its yellow painted walls, which the ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ singer choose himself. Its entirely mirrored dressing room, where the fashion icon showed off his signature outfits, will make you feel like a champion. Mercury also redesigned the garden, where he planted several beautiful magnolia trees and a mixture of topiary trees.
Mary Austin commented on her own connection to Garden Lodge, and her hopes for the next owner. ‘This house has been the most glorious memory box, because it has such love and warmth in every room. 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.’ The house is set for a new artistic dawn.
