A London house known as the Garden Lodge, purchased by Freddie Mercury in 1980, has just gone up for sale for 30 million pounds (35 million euros). The property has been preserved by Mercury’s friend Mary Austin since his passing in 1991 and its future owner will thus get a great sense of how the Queen legend used to live. Other than its ties to pop culture, the home in itself is a gem to be discovered in the London house market.
“The sale of Garden Lodge presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own a significant property combined with a piece of cultural history, the beloved home of an icon”, real estate agency Knight Frank’s Paddy Dring said in a statement. “Notwithstanding the legacy of the house, it is very rare that unmodernized homes of this scale, set in such beautiful mature gardens, come to market, so it is certainly an exciting prospect for any future purchaser.”
The history of the Garden Lodge has been filled with artistic influences from the beginning. The Neo-Georgian style building in Kensington was built around 1908 for Cecil Rea et Constance Rea, a couple of painters. From the beginning, it disposed of no less than eight bedrooms, a big painting room and 1 hectare of land, a rarely seen sight in London. Between the death of the Reas and the purchase of the house by Mercury in 1980, for 500,000 pounds, it exchanged hands multiple times, but the spirit of the house remained very much the same.
When Mercury bought the place, he considered it to be his urban holiday house. He asked interior designer Robin Moore Ede to decorate it to match his eccentric style. For example, the dining room was painted a citrus-yellow colour (his favourite) and the dressing which gives access to the master suite is cladded with mirrors from floor to ceiling.
Mercury spent the last ten years of his life in the house and, after his passing, his friend Mary Austin became guardian of the property and its furnishings. In 2023, she already decided to put many of Mercury’s belongings up for auction and one year later, it’s time for the Garden Lodge to be sold.
“This house has been the most glorious memory box, because it has such love and warmth in every room”, Austin said. “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.”
