Kenwood, St. George's Hill

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Kenwood
South view of Kenwood
Building Information
Name	Kenwood
Location	Weybridge
Country	England
Architect	Walter George Tarrant
Completion Date	1913
Style	Tudor revival

Kenwood is a house on the St. George's Hill estate, Weybridge, England. It was built in 1913, by local developer Walter George Tarrant, and was originally called The Brown House. The estate was built around the Weybridge Golf Club, which was designed in 1912 by Harry Colt. Kenwood was re-named by manufacturer Ken Wood when he owned the property.

John Lennon, of The Beatles, bought Kenwood (for £20,000) on July 15, 1964, on the advice of The Beatles' accountants, Dr. Walter Strach, and James Isherwood. Lennon was resident from the summer of 1964, until the late spring of 1968. Film of the exterior of the house and the gate was included in an ITN programme called Reporting 66, in 1966. Parts of a home movie showing Lennon at Kenwood (1967) were featured in the film Imagine: John Lennon.

Kenwood is close to Sunny Heights, the former home of Ringo Starr, and a short drive from Kinfauns, George Harrison's former home in Esher. Lennon kept the Kenwood house sign after he left, but gave it to gardener Andy Eccles, who worked at Tittenhurst Park, in 1972. The sign was sold for £10,052 ($20,400) in 2003. In October 2006, Kenwood went back on the market, with an asking price of £5.95 million ($12.3 million), and was sold in January 2007.

[edit] History

The front gate as it is today, which replaced a sliding wooden door to keep out fans of The Beatles.

Kenwood was built in 1913, by local developer Walter George Tarrant, and was originally called The Brown House.^[1][2] Located on Wood Lane, off Cavendish Road, and built in a mock-Tudor style, it is situated on one and a half acres of land. Tarrant was born on 8 April 1875, at Brockhurst, near Gosport, Hampshire, and became a carpenter; starting a business in Byfleet in 1895. He built houses in Pyrford, West Byfleet, and in Woking, Surrey, as they were a short train journey from London.

Tarrant later created the St George's Hill estate, of which Kenwood is a part, in 1911, after he purchased 964 acres (3.9 km²) on St. George’s Hill from W.F. Egerton.^[3] The estate was built around the Weybridge Golf Club, which was designed by Harry Colt, in 1912.^[4] Tarrant's purpose was to provide "large country retreats for the wealthy gentlemen of London".^[3] Many of Tarrant’s bigger houses were built with hand-made bricks and tiles, with tall chimneys and dormer windows in the roof, as was Kenwood. The doors, panelling, ceilings, staircases and floors were expensive, with stonework around the fireplaces and the front door, and some had marble floors in the hallways. A stone tablet can still be seen on some of Tarrant's houses with his initials "WGT", and the date of completion.^[5] Tarrant later employed about 5,000 workmen in the 1920s, with an office staff of seventy.^[3] The St. George's Hill estate now has approx. 420 houses.^[3] Kenwood was later re-named by manufacturer Ken Wood when he owned the property.^[6]

[edit] Renovation

Lennon bought the house on July 15, 1964, on the advice of The Beatles' accountants, Dr. Walter Strach, and James Isherwood.^[7][8] Cliff Richard and Tom Jones had earlier bought homes on the St. George's Hill estate.^[9] Though reportedly not liking Kenwood (describing it as a "stopover" on the way to something better) Lennon spent twice the original £20,000 ($40,588) (£257,200 today) purchase price on renovations, reducing its 22 rooms to 17, landscaping the grounds and building an outdoor swimming pool.^[10] Much of the initial decoration was left to interior designer Kenneth Partridge, whom Lennon employed after being impressed by his design work at a lavish party held by Beatles' manager Brian Epstein to celebrate the Beatles' departure for their first tour of the USA.^[11] However, when Partridge had completed his work, Lennon and then-wife Cynthia immediately made a number of further alterations which better reflected their taste.^[12] Cynthia's mother was given an allowance to fill the shelves of the house with antiques and antiquarian books, and a heavy sliding wooden door was installed at the gate entrance to keep out fans.^[13]

Kenwood has 3 floors: on the ground floor during the Lennon period the front door opened onto an entrance hall, where Lennon placed a suit of armour and a gorilla suit. Across the hall was a large living room, which had black carpets, two 18-foot sofas and a marble fireplace.^[14] To the left of the hall was a toilet, and through the living room was a dining room, where purple, velvet wallpaper was put up.^[15] Adjacent to the dining room, at the back of the house, was a small sunroom. This was decorated with various pictures, caricatures and stickers, such as the one from the Safe as Milk debut album (1967) by Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, and one advertising the Monterey Pop Festival.^[16][17] Photos published by The Beatles Book Monthly show the shelves of the sunroom filled with articles such as a large, ornate cross, a Mickey Mouse doll and a mortar and pestle, reportedly used by Lennon to mix various combinations of cocaine, amphetamine, barbituates and LSD.^[18][19][20] There was also a yellow sofa or chaise-longue upon which Lennon would spend much of his time. It was a present from his aunt, Elizabeth Sutherland (née Stanley) also known as Mater.^[21] Behind the sunroom was the split-level kitchen where state-of-the-art appliances were installed, so complex that a tutor had to come and give the Lennons lessons in their use.^[22]

Completing the ground floor was a smaller lounge, and a games room. The main staircase to the upper floors was situated in the entrance hall. The house had 6 bedrooms, with 5 on the first floor. The giant master bedroom featured a huge double bed, white carpets and an en-suite bathroom complete with sunken bathtub, shower, Jacuzzi and 'his and hers' wash basins.^[23] Lennon wanted the guest bedrooms to contain works of art by students of the Liverpool Art College.^[24] In particular, two drawings by former Beatles' bassist Stuart Sutcliffe were hung, for what Lennon described as "sentimental reasons".^[25][26] The first floor also had a study. On the top floor was the attic, which Lennon claimed as his own, painting the ceiling one bright colour, then changing to another when the paint ran out, and installing most of his musical equipment there.^[27] Outside the house, to the right as you looked down from the sunroom, lay the swimming pool. In 1967, Lennon suggested a mirrored bottom for the pool; being advised that this would be not only impractical and expensive, but potentially dangerous to swimmers, he settled for a large eye mosaic set in the side.^[28][29] The mosaic was based on the Eye of Knowledge, which was part of the teachings of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.^[30]

[edit] Staff

Kenwood's side garden from second storey window.

The Lennons initially had problems recruiting reliable staff, but eventually employed a cook/housekeeper (Dorothy Jarlett, or Dot) a chauffeur (Les Anthony) and a groundskeeper.^[31][32] Lennon was surprised and impressed to discover that the groundskeeper had "dropped out" of university to pursue his love of horticulture.^[33] Others employed at Kenwood included Pete Shotton, who worked as Lennon's Personal Assistant in the early part of 1968, and Pauline Jones, who was the girlfriend (later wife) of Lennon's father Freddie Lennon. Jones worked as an au pair and secretary, answering the large volume of fan mail received at Kenwood, during late 1967.^[34][35][36]

[edit] Songwriting

Lennon did much of his songwriting in the attic, where he had several Studer tape recorders.^[37] Little was done with them until fellow Beatle Paul McCartney came over and helped re-install them in sequence, so overdubs could be made.^[38] Lennon could thus record his own doubletracked song demos. (These demos, and some other, more avant garde sound recordings also made in the attic, have appeared on various bootlegs). The attic also contained a mellotron, an electric organ, a piano, a Vox AC30 and several guitars, all of which were used when songwriting.^[39] Lennon also wrote on an upright piano in the sunroom.^[40]

[edit] Recreation

View of Kenwood's swimming pool today (taken from the second floor of the house). The direction of the pool was changed after Lennon's time there.

Aside from the mini-studio, the attic contained 2 other rooms - a small guest bedroom and a games room used for recreation. Lennon filled it with three full sets of the model car racing game, Scalextric.^[41] When not in the attic, Lennon could usually be found in the sunroom watching television or reading newspapers. He would also walk in the garden with his black cat on his shoulder (he had ten cats in total).^[42][43] His drug intake, particularly LSD and hashish, but also amphetamine, was high for much of the time he lived at Kenwood.^[44] Drugs were taken there in the company of people such as Marianne Faithfull's ex-husband John Dunbar and art dealer Robert Fraser.^[45] At one stage, under the influence of transcendental meditation, Lennon renounced both meat-eating and drugs, and buried a huge quantity of LSD, which had been obtained by representatives of The Beatles at the Monterey Pop Festival from infamous LSD producer Augustus Stanley Owsley III, in the grounds.^[46][47] He later tried to find the buried LSD, but could not remember exactly where it was. Although no lavish planned parties were ever held, which remained a source of disappointment to Cynthia, various guests (including Monkee Michael Nesmith and his wife Phyllis, Bob Dylan and Peter Cook) stayed or dined at the house, together with old friends like Ivan Vaughan and Pete Shotton from Liverpool, or strangers Lennon had met at a party or nightclub, such as the Ad Lib.^[48] Cynthia and Lennon were beginning to lead separate lives by 1967, and it was not uncommon for Cynthia to wake up in the morning to find the house filled with people in various states of intoxication that Lennon had met in clubs the night before, and invited back.^[49] However, large parts of the house were unused by the Lennons, and visitors remarked that there was frequently a strange atmosphere.^[50]

[edit] Lennon, Cynthia, and Ono

Back garden view of Kenwood. The sunroom can be seen in the centre-right of the picture.

In 1968, Cynthia wwent on vacation to Greece, leaving Lennon at Kenwood with Shotton. After several days of taking LSD and smoking marijuana, Lennon convened a meeting at the Beatles' business HQ to inform the others that he felt he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.^[51] Later that day, he phoned Ono, whose own husband Tony (Anthony Cox) was in Paris on business, and invited her to Kenwood. Shotton left the two alone, whereupon Lennon invited Ono (who had also taken LSD) up to the attic to hear his largely experimental non-Beatles recordings. For the rest of the night, the two collaborated on what became the Two Virgins album, and then "made love at dawn".^[52] Cynthia returned early from her vacation, and discovered Ono in residence (and wearing one of Cynthia's bathrobes). In a state of shock, Cynthia then left to stay with friends for a few days, although Lennon and Cynthia were reconciled for a time upon her return to Kenwood.^[53] It was during Cynthia's next holiday in Italy that Lennon and Ono finally entered into a permanent relationship. Cynthia, together with Julian and her mother, moved back into Kenwood for the summer, where Paul McCartney visited her to offer his support.^[54][55] On the journey to Kenwood he composed the song, Hey Jude, which eventually became The Beatles' biggest selling single.^[56] Lennon and Ono, meanwhile, were without a permanent address for a time. They stayed with McCartney at his house in Cavendish Avenue (where it is alleged that a further breach occurred in the Lennon/McCartney relationship when Lennon discovered a derogatory note concerning Ono written by McCartney), and with Peter Brown and then Neil Aspinall, before moving into an apartment leased by Starr at Montagu Square in London.^[57][58] They were evicted from this flat by the owner following a raid by the drug squad on 18 October 1968, and subsequent November trial, and so moved back into Kenwood for a short time, which had by then been vacated by Cynthia.^[59] In the new year the Ono/Lennons moved into the Dorchester Hotel in London, and then planned and executed the bed in campaign in Holland and Canada. They also spent time in Denmark visiting Ono's daughter. On March 20, 1969, they married after Ono's divorce from Anthony Cox was finalised, and the two moved yet again, this time into Tittenhurst Park in Ascot. Cynthia also remarried, living for spells in London, Liverpool, eventually running a small bistro in Ruthin, North Wales, before moving to Majorca, Spain.^[60]

[edit] Film/Interview/Photos

Up the driveway: side view of Kenwood. In 1968, a clip of Lennon and Japanese artist Ono singing was filmed behind where the hedge now is.

Film of the exterior of the house and the gate was included in Reporting 66; a programme produced by ITN, in 1966.^[61] Parts of a home movie showing Lennon at Kenwood, in 1967, were featured in the film Imagine: John Lennon.^[62] This had Lennon in the company of Starr, his son Julian Lennon and the gardener at Kenwood. It also shows Lennon standing in the sunroom.^[63] Lennon and Yoko Ono were filmed singing the "Everybody Had A Hard Year" section of the Beatles' song "I've Got A Feeling", at the side of the house, and made two art films in the grounds in 1968: Number 5 a.k.a. Smile, and Two Virgins.^[64] Lennon was interviewed several times on audio tape at Kenwood, by people like Ray Coleman, and Kenny Everett.^[65][66] Several photo sessions also took place at Kenwood, the most famous of which provided the cover photo for the Beatles' album (1965) Rubber Soul.^[67]

[edit] Kenwood after the Lennons

As Lennon and Cynthia were getting divorced, it became clear that Lennon didn't wish to keep Kenwood, and Cynthia couldn't afford to maintain it on her own, so it was sold in December 1968 to Bill Martin, writer of songs such as Puppet on a String & Congratulations.^[68] Kenwood has subsequently changed hands several times, and been subject to some major renovation work, such that the interior now little resembles the house that Lennon lived in. The exterior and grounds are still recognisable, although the sunroom has been completely rebuilt. The psychedelic eye mosaic in the swimming pool was removed, and the west-facing pool was rebuilt in a south-east direction when Kenwood was owned by a Swedish businessman.^[28] After being displayed at the Liverpool Garden Festival in 1985, the psychedelic eye mosaic was unclaimed, and left in a field. It was rediscovered, and restored by Tom Lorimer, a laboratory technician at the Liverpool John Moores University.^[69] The mosaic was then displayed at the Museum of Liverpool Life.^[70] Items from Lennon's Kenwood period have also appeared for auction, including towels and cutlery, a caviar jar, and the table that sat in the sunroom.^[71] Lennon kept the Kenwood house sign after he left, but gave it to Andy Eccles, who was a gardener at Tittenhurst Park, in 1972. It was sold for $20400.00, in 2003.^[8] In October 2006, Kenwood went back on the market, with an asking price of £5.95 million ($12.3 million), and was sold in January 2007.^[72] It has been claimed that every owner after the Lennons has sold it due to divorce.^[73]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Brown, Peter and Gaines, Steven (1984). The Love You Make. Pan. ISBN 0-330-28227-1. 
• Coleman, Ray (2000). Lennon - The Definitive Biography. Pan. ISBN 0-330-48330-7. 
• Davies, Hunter (2002). The Beatles. Cassell Illustrated. ISBN 030-4-36264-6. 
• Giuliano, Geoffrey (2005). Revolver: The Secret History of the Beatles. John Blake. ISBN 978-1844541607. 
• Giuliano, Geoffrey (1997). The Lost Lennon Interviews. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0711964709. 
• Goldman, Albert (1989). The Lives Of John Lennon. Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-17542-4. 
• Kindersley, Dorling (2004). 10 Years That Shook the World. Dorling Kindersley Ltd. ISBN 978-0756606701. 
• Lennon, Cynthia (1978). A Twist Of Lennon. Star. ISBN 0-352-30196-1. 
• Lennon, Cynthia (2006). John. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-89828-3. 
• Lennon, Pauline (1990). Daddy Come Home. Angus and Robertsons. ISBN 0-207-16996-9. 
• Lewisohn, Mark (1996). The Complete Beatles Chronicle. Chancellor Press. ISBN 1-851259-975-6. 
• Miles, Barry (1997). Many Years From Now. Vintage-Random House. ISBN 0-7493-8658-4. 
• Miles, Barry (1998). The Beatles: A Diary. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0711963153. 
• Sandford, Christopher (2006). McCartney. Century. ISBN 0-7493-8658-4. 
• Shotton, Pete and Schaffner, Nicholas (1983). John Lennon - In My Life. Coronet. ISBN 0-340-34699-X. 
• Vyner, Harriet (1999). Groovy Bob - The Life And Times Of Robert Fraser. Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-20575-5. 

[edit] External links

• Kenwood, St. George's Hill is at coordinates 51°21′20″N 0°26′47″W / 51.355522, -0.446335 (Kenwood, St. George's Hill)Coordinates: 51°21′20″N 0°26′47″W / 51.355522, -0.446335 (Kenwood, St. George's Hill)