Mercury manor up for sale – but you must flash the cash first
FREDDIE MERCURY’S home is for sale but the property listing is only available to those with at least £30million to spare.
There is no online listing for Garden Lodge in Kensington, which was Mercury’s residence before his death in 1991.
The layout and square footage remain undisclosed for the sake of privacy, according to the estate agent, Knight Frank. Only two photos of the interior are to be released, showing a portion of the entrance hall and a corner of the yellow-painted dining room. Offers are invited in excess of
£30 million.
The Queen star bequeathed the house and everything in it to
Mary Austin, his closest friend, who moved in shortly after his death. She sold the contents at auction in September 2023 and is now selling the west London house.
“It was really only ever my house in name only,” Ms Austin told Bloomberg. “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.”
Ms Austin, 72, said of her decision to sell up: “The auction was enormous.
And I wasn’t sure how I would feel at this moment. But I realised the time had come.” She has been living alone in the house since her two children grew up and moved out.
To deter fans from posing as potential buyers, Knight Frank will vet applicants to check they have sufficient funds to purchase the property. Only then will they share further details and arrange viewings.
A spokesman said: “A decision has been made not to put details online for privacy reasons. And we have processes in place when it comes to interested parties.”
Mercury bought the neo-georgian house in 1980. It has a double-height drawing room, which housed the grand piano on which the singer wrote Bohemian Rhapsody, and a minstrel’s gallery redesigned as a bar, library and music centre.
The dining room was painted a bright yellow, evoking Mercury’s childhood in Zanzibar and India, while the sitting room had Japanese influence.
The eight bedrooms include a principal suite entered through an “extraordinary” art deco dressing room with floor-to-ceiling mirrors where Mercury nce stored his stage costumes.
Ms Austin told The Telegraph that Mercury told her: “I’ve left you the house because you would have been the woman I would have married, and by rights this would all have been yours anyway.”
Mercury and Ms Austin had a six-year relationship and remained close after their split.
The singer once said: “The only friend I’ve got is Mary, and I don’t want anybody else.”