Kenwood: more August, 2012

More new shiznit. The kitchen has been re-done (and, though it isn't evident from this angle, presumably retains the old front door, moved during the 90s):


The rebuilt sunroom is the same as before. Nothing much to see here:


Except...woah! On the very spot where John's beloved old couch sat, now sits something similar:


Proof of something or other on the part of the owner? Co-incidence? (But then, as we should all know by now, there's no such thing as co-incidence.)
Moving on to the first floor; directly above the dining room, and originally a bedroom, this has been converted to an en-suite for the adjacent master bedroom. Nothing remains here from John's time, apart from the floorboards and the window:


The master bedroom during the 1960s, and, after years where it served as a bathroom following conversion in the '90s, the master bedroom again now. It's a bit bigger than before, as there used to be a corridor here which has been co-opted to provide more space. The very spot where the famous photo of John plus bear was taken:


Out to the garden, and a contemporary view from John's perch (see posts passim):


The lower wall has been substantially rebuilt, though I'd guess the outer sections are the same, and that parts of certain features remain:


A bit more to come at some point.

Kenwood: August, 2012.

Kenwood is back on the market, and with it the chance to assess the latest post-renovation incarnation.
New windows, and substantial landscaping "pokery":


The entrance hall, and the first time I've seen the staircase, which has survived since the house was built circa 1913:


This whole area, once part of the kitchen, has been opened out to create more space:


The living room: original wood panelling still intact, as are the fireplace and the door through to the dining room, but the roof beams have gone:


Through to the dining room, which remains fundamentally the same as ever, decor notwithstanding. Note the door leading to the sunroom/kitchen area:


On the other side of the living room is the small sitting room, again recognisable, despite the new window and door:


The view from the sunroom, down to where the covered swimming pool now does squat at the bottom of the garden:


Asking price? 15 million pounds. It should be remembered that Kenwood has no listed status, and whoever buys it would, in theory, be able to "do a Kinnie" (ie demolish it in order to build another, even bigger house), something happening more and more often on St George's Hill these days. Which is slightly worrying, I suppose.
More to follow.

Kenwood: sunroom, December 1968.

More superlative sunroom shots from December 1968; the back wall and cupboards looking a little threadbare following Cynthia's clearance job. No more Safe As Milk (though shurely Lil and Cyn didn't nab those. Beefheart was, apparently, quite critical of the Beatles' more psychedelic oeuvre, which is a bit rich coming from the man who released Strictly Personal (though the phasing wasn't his fault). Still, whatever point I was trying to make when I began this sentence, some time ago, should be clear). Compare with June '67 - and note the re-upholstery of the couch had begun even then:


Enthralling stuff, yes? Hello? Helloooo? Echoechoechoetc etc etc.
Anyway, tea and salad was the order of this particular day:


Further exposure:

Kenwood: master bedroom, December 1968.

John caught napping in the master bedroom at Kenwood in December, 1968 (and in its own way, a more intimite shot than some other more obvious contendahs).
Compare with the black and white pic previously on here:


Some more similarly first-rate shots have been shoved under my nose this evening, and they'll be on here in good time.
Sir Thom, I thank ye once more...

Kenwood: summer, 1968 - part 4.

According to Cathy's account, this is a picture of the living room... and so it is, though I was thrown a little at first, because the pic doesn't really resemble any of the previously seen shots. The lithographs have gone, to be replaced by that odd looking wooden wall cupboard, similar to the one in the dining room (in fact, it may even be the one from the dining room, transplanted to the living room); the hard couches, too, offski. Obviously, therefore, a lot of renovation has gone on... which God knows, should be no surprise by this point.
The clue lies in the doorway - although everything else has changed, it hasn't. Compare with the shot from 1965:


So Cathy would have been standing beside the fireplace, looking through to the dining room. The same spot from 2006:


There are one or two other familiar things, though. John has left the Ramirez guitar lying about. Most remiss of him:


And the round table, which later ended up in the sunroom:


Also note the "famous" black carpet, a magnet for cat shit, apparently; again Cyn and her mum must have rolled this up (the carpet, not the cat shit)(actually, the carpet and the cat shit) and taken it (and just about everything else in the room) away with them, because by December, the floorboards are bare.
It's another fascinating, and intimate shot, affording a glimpse of the interior house, long gone, John.
Many thanks again to Cathy and Lizzie.

Kenwood: summer, 1968 - part 2.

More from Cathy. The den was really Cynthia's equivalent of the sunroom/attic; it was where she hung out. This little snapshot at last answers some questions, and ties together many photos previously seen on these pages. So, to start, some perspective; you can see the corner of the piano in the bottom left, and in position in the Fool shots:


The rather touching pic of Julian fiddling about with pater's tache was also taken here, as suspected:


Long term readers will recall the outbreak of ultra-violence that accompanied the debate about this pic. Was it taken in the den or not? I think this proves it was (note - that's the sunroom couch; which, I reckon, means this photo was taken in 1965, pre-sunroom.):


And, o' course, the Ringo authored family shot that appeared in the Beatles' biography in 1968; once again, this couch was the venue:


Finally, the same spot, almost exactly, from around 2006:


Huge thanks again to Cathy and Lizzie. More to come, very soon.

Kenwood: summer, 1968 - part 1.

(May as well start at the front door.)
Cathy Kelleher Sarver visited Kenwood shortly after John & Yoko had moved out in the summer of 1968, and...well, she can tell you herself:
"It was summer 1968 and John had stopped living at Kenwood but the house was so very special to me, I just had to go there anyway. My friend and I went to the house and rang the doorbell. A lady answered the door. I asked if I could take a picture of inside the door and she let us into the long foyer. Then she opened the door to the living room and I got that picture and then she opened the door to what I call the "music room". Both rooms were about three steps down from the foyer (the house was built on a hill). In Alf Bicknell's book he talks about helping John paint a room red. This must be the room! Then we went back to the door and I asked if I could take a picture of her and she said, “Yes". After I took the picture of her with the foyer's built-in bookcases in the background she said, "Who are you going to tell your friends I am?”. Neither of us spoke but I was thinking, "The maid?", but didn't want to say that. Then she said, "I'm Cynthia's mother." WOW! It was Mrs. Powell. We thanked her and left the door, which she shut. THEN we went all over the property!!! And no one knew!!! And then we left. We were such good fans we didn't even take a leaf off a tree!!!! At some point in the conversation Mrs. Powell told us Cynthia was at the pool watching Julian and a neighborhood friend. I took a picture through the fence from the back driveway and you can just barely see two little heads in the water!!!!!"


All in all, Cathy took 20 (count 'em) pics that day, and guess wot? They are all going to be on here, over the next few days. First off, the "naked lady" door knocker, together with the Lennon coat of arms. Clearly a hastily snatched pic, I've paired it with the one from the end of the year showing the same thing. Above, the entrance hall (with John's nemesis much in evidence) - and final proof that it was the location for those John-in-the-bathchair shots. Note that the books have all gone, later to appear at Tittenhurst. Funny, that. John didn't care about much of the detritus he'd accumulated at Kenwood, judging by the fact that Cynthia took most of it, uncontested. But he clearly wanted the books. (Musta been a "reader".)


Many thanks go to Cathy for so generously agreeing to let us see her photos and hear her story, and to her good friend, the wonderful Lizzie Bravo, who sorted it all out. Aguardientes all round.

Kenwood: kitchen & interview, 1969.

John in the kitchen at Kenwood, circa late 1968/early 1969. This comes from an interview in the Daily Express, published on the day of Paul's wedding - March 12, 1969. It's the first glimpse of the Lennon-era cooking area (ripped out in the mid-1990s, and now a connecting hall). The central raised hobs can be seen, as in the 1964 Partridge plan:


The interview also mentions a portrait of Queen Victoria, thus confirming this pic as being from the breakfast terrace after all:


And the interview itself; "John Lennon hates his superbly ponderous Tudor house in Weybridge. He and Yoko plan to move to a contemporary glass job nearby." Not Tittenhurst, obviously.
The clipping further contains yet more evidence that Cynthia and her mother stripped the place bare:



Many thanks to Ian Drummond for sending this in.

Kenwood: living room 2006 & 1968.

Before bothering with the amusing "Yawn" comments, I know these have been on before. However the 2006 photo is uncropped for the first time, and gives a complete view of that window seat.
Although the skirting radiator is gone and the ceiling has been painted white, this is one bit of Kenwood to have survived more or less intact since 1913 when the house was built.
(Yawn.)

Kenwood: sunroom - 2006 & 1968.

A ca.2006 photo showing the other end of the sunroom in its modern day incarnation. The current structure is slightly bigger, and certainly more substantial than the sunroom which John had built, presumably sometime in late 1964/early 1965. There doesn't seem to be any record of planning permission for John's sunroom, and it is quite likely that none was ever actually sought.
As we've seen, although the current sunroom occupies roughly the same space as the Lennon-model, it's not the same physical structure. However, the external terrace wall has survived intact:


In John's day, the internal sunroom entrance led directly into the kitchen, and the sunroom itself was probably intended to be an equivalent of the small room off the kitchen at Mendips, where John spent much of his time when at Mimi's.
The Lennon-era kitchen is long gone, of course, and the present sunroom (or garden room as the estate agent would have it) leads to an internal hallway.

Kenwood: north-west extension.

And while we are about it, he (Tammy) has also found this. Again, the widest perspective on the large garage overlooking the swimming pool so far. It also gives a good view of one of the speakers that John had set into the wheel spaces of the Rolls. He would use these to put the fear into pedestrians, via deafening train noises, and Brian Jones, via microphone ("Brian Jones! This is the police! Pull over now!" etc.)
Wot a larf.
Incidentally, the above pic was taken, of course, on June 29, 1967. Fast forward almost 40 years to 2006, and the same space, from roughly the same perspective, looked like this...


...the garage and north-west end having been demolished and re-built in the mid-90s, in order to construct more upstairs bedrooms, and the games room seen here.

Kenwood: more den.

Tammy has unearthed a wider perspective version of one of the colour den shots. It's been slightly cropped, however, so I've stitched it and the old one together to give the widest perspective thus far.
Is that the Mr Kite poster on the right hand side?



Hard to tell exactly, but it could be.

Kenwood: more living room.

Another original 1913 feature which has survived is the external entrance to the ground floor living room. In 1968 it was out of use, being covered by a bench (or half a bench - or half a bed, or whatever it was). The other door that can be seen in the black and white pic leads through to the den:


The area was captured in the 1968 Austrian film, as well as Joe Baiardi's video from 2008:


As we have seen, when John & Yoko moved back into Kenwood at the end of November 1968, the living room was transformed into a storage space for their various art exhibits - including those from the Half-A-Wind Show at the Lisson Gallery in 1967. John's contribution to that had been the Air Bottles, in which the other halves of the exhibits were stored "conceptually". Paper labels bore the name of the half-a-whatever it happened to be:


The bottles sat on the window shelf/seat in the living room at Kenwood, again an area captured on film in '68 and '08:


Incidentally, not many of the exhibits from that particular show survived the moves from Surrey to Berkshire to the upper west side, though one that did is the following, if looking a little careworn these days: