Kenwood is a house on the St. George's Hill estate, in Weybridge, Surrey, That John Lennon purchased in 1964. It was originally called the Brown House, and built in 1913. When John bought Kenwood on 15th July, he paid £20,000 (that’s just under £400,000 in today’s money) and along with his wife Cynthia and son Julian he moved in that summer.
(photo from google image search)
The private estate that the house was built on was also home to other music stars like Tom Jones and Cliff Richard, and not long after John moving in, Ringo and George also moved in close by.
(photo from google image search)
Lennon spent £40,000 on renovating the house, a house he said he didn’t particularly like, thinking of it as more a stop over till a better house came up that he liked more.
(photos from google image search)
He reduced the 22 rooms in the house into 17, he had the grounds landscaped along with an outdoor swimming pool, the swimming pool was originally meant to have an expensive mirror bottom to it, but John finally decided on a mosaic eye on the bottom of the pool!
(Photo from google image search)
Finally a heavy sliding wooden gate was fitted to keep the fans out. In the entrance hall Lennon had a suit of armour and a gorilla suit. In the living room was two 18 foot long sofas. And then there was the famous sun room, covered with curios, paintings, caricatures and stickers. The sofa in the sun room was a present from his Aunt Mimi, and he spent a lot of his time laying out on it.
(photo from google image search)
And that was only some of the rooms on the ground floor, there were two other floors to explore in Lennon’s new home. As well as a massive master bedroom, there were 5 other bedrooms. In the guest bedroom hung artwork by old band mate and friend Stuart Sutcliffe.
(photo from goole image search)
The top floor of the house was ‘Lennon’s’ painting it in a bright colour, only to run out of paint before he finished, so he simply continued painting the rest of the room in a different colour. The join between the two was hardly flawless. He installed lots of musical equipment on this floor, for making his own demos for music.
(photos from google image search)
It was here that John and Yoko made their unfinished music album ‘two virgins’ just before they made love for the first time together. In another room in the attic John filled with three full sets of the model car racing game, Scalextric.
(Photo from google image search)
John has 10 cats while at Kenwood and he would the grounds with one of them sitting on his shoulder. It was in the sunroom of Kenwood where (returning from a holiday) Cynthia walked in on John and Yoko in bath robes acting as if they were a married couple. This event signalled the end end of Cynthia and John’s marriage.
(photo from google image search)
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