Freddie Mercury’s London home has been put on sale with an asking price of $38 million – more than 1,000 times the amount paid by the Queen star in 1980.
Mercury left Garden Lodge, in the affluent Kensington neighborhood, to his closest friend Mary Austin when he died in 1991. After she auctioned most of the property’s furniture in 2023, along with a range of Mercury’s other possessions, she decided it was time to sell the house she’d stayed in for over 30 years.
“It was really only ever my house in name only,” Austin told Bloomberg in a recent interview. “I had worked on the house with him and for him, and it will always be his. It was his dream, it was his vision.”
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Mercury spent 10 years renovating the property to his own specifications. While sales agents Knight Frank declined to make full details public – and anyone who asks to view it will be put though a vetting procedure – Bloomberg offered a first-person viewpoint.
“The design and details, such as citrus-yellow paint on the walls and spectacular art deco mirrors in the rock star’s dressing room, are the way Mercury left them,” the publication reported.
There are eight bedrooms, a Japan-themed living room, second living room, dining room, and a studio drawing room with “yellow walls and ornate stone fireplace,” where Mercury played his grand piano.
There’s also a bar, library and Japanese-style garden. The singer’s bedroom suite extends to four rooms including full-height mirrors and two bathrooms. “It’s not a blank canvas, and that’s part of what makes it so special,” Bloomberg noted.
Austin recalled the day she and Mercury visited Garden Lodge for the first time, saying: “It was a summer day, children were playing in the garden, and I was behind Freddie as we came in. It was so quiet and so peaceful, and that continued through the house. Freddie went outside and said, ‘Tell them to take it off the market. I’ll give them the asking price now.’”
She added: “The press had been pursuing him to come out, and he wouldn’t, and why should he? And this gave him the wonderful feeling that he could create and live and be private here.”
At 72, with her children having established their own lives away from the house, Austin said it was time to sell – although she’d considered it in the past too. In the time following Mercury’s passing she’d wondered if it would be “healthy” to live among his mementos, but ultimately decided she didn’t need to let go “for quite some years.”
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She continued: “The auction was enormous. And I wasn’t sure how I would feel at this moment. But I realized that the time had come.”
Asked about her thoughts on the property’s next owner, she said: “The last thing you want is for someone to say, ‘Yes, I’ll buy it,’ and exploit it, and demolish it. This is unique and has its beauty, and I know it has a purpose for someone – it did for Freddie.”
But she added: “Once you’ve sold, you’ve sold. You can’t hold on to the past forever, I suppose. I’ll be leaving with it very warm in my heart.”
Knight Frank
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Gallery Credit: Eduardo Rivadavia