Have you ever wanted to know where your favourite celebrities once lived? Well, now you can. These dwellings were once home to some of the world’s most recognisable people. From Frank Sinatra and Elvis to Claude Monet and Frida Kahlo, these former stars' houses have been carefully restored and preserved to provide a fascinating insight into their lives.
Click or scroll on to step back in time and explore these time capsule celebrity homes...
The northwest English city of Liverpool is famous for two major exports: football and The Beatles. Widely regarded as the most influential band of all time, all four members were born and bred in the city, and their legacy continues to attract legions of fans year upon year.
Across the city, many landmarks have been erected or preserved in honour of the group, including the childhood home of the legendary John Lennon.
The first five years of Lennon's life were tumultuous, with absent parents, custody battles, infidelity, and an attempted emigration to New Zealand.
He moved into 251 Menlove Avenue in Woolton – a well-to-do Liverpudlian suburb – to live with his uncle and aunt, George and Mimi Smith.
It was here he spent the remainder of his childhood and adolescence, living in the property until mid-1963 when he was 22 years old. This was after The Beatles’ debut album had been released, featuring hits such as Love Me Do and Twist and Shout.
The home was a place of great significance for Lennon: not only had he grown up here, but songs like Please Please Me and I’ll Get You were composed on the premises.
Unfortunately, the Liverpool semi-detached residence is also a site of great tragedy. Approximately 100 feet (30 metres) from 251 Menlove Avenue, Lennon’s mother, Julia, was hit by a car and killed after a visit in 1958.
Her death traumatised the young musician and influenced future music, such as the track Julia.
251 Menlove Avenue received a coveted English Heritage blue plaque on 7 December 2000 – the day before the 20th anniversary of Lennon’s death. Two years later, his widow, Yoko Ono, purchased the home to protect it from developers. She donated it to the National Trust, which restored the interiors authentically to the style of the era.
It opened to the public in 2003 and remains a huge tourist attraction in Liverpool. In February 2012, both Lennon's and bandmate Paul McCartney’s respective childhood homes became Grade II listed buildings.
Frida Kahlo remains one of the most iconic artists of the 20th century, so it's no real surprise that her lifelong home was just as colourful and unique as she was.
The Mexican painter was not only born at the Blue House in 1907, but she also grew up there, lived there with her husband, Diego Rivera, for many years, and passed away in a room on the top floor of the house in July 1954.
Kahlo contracted polio at just six years old and was bedridden for nine months. It is said that her father encouraged her to recuperate by playing lots of sports that even included wrestling, which was unusual at that time for a girl.
In 1922, Kahlo attended the National Preparatory School in Mexico City, where she would meet Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, whom she claimed to want to marry someday. That same year, Frida would go travelling with Gomez Arias and suffer her fateful car accident, fracturing her pelvis and spine.
Also known as La Casa Azul, the property can be found in one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Mexico City, Coyoacán. In 1958, the house and its contents were turned into a museum, and many of the artist's possessions can still be seen today, left exactly where she placed them many decades before.
Personal effects include Kahlo's paints, brushes and easels, as well as pre-Hispanic necklaces, folk dresses, and her much-depicted wheelchair.
Although Kahlo lived in various homes across Mexico during her lifetime, she always came back to La Casa Azul. Left much as it was in the 1950s, the unusual house reveals her enigmatic personality, with vibrant colours and unusual trinkets dotted in every room.
It offers 8,611 square feet (800sqm) of inside space and boasts some of the painter’s most important works, including Long Live Life and Portrait of My Father Wilhelm Kahlo.
Yet the garden at La Casa Azul is probably its most important feature. This is where Kahlo spent much of her time, and it is the place that fed her imagination, resulting in various spectacular paintings that were inspired by the garden's colours, plants, and wildlife.
Left perfectly untouched, the Blue House preserves the memory of one of Latin America’s most celebrated female artists, offering a glimpse into her arduous and fascinating life.
Who isn't intrigued by celebrity childhood homes from before they were famous? This modest clapboard house is where country music legend Johnny Cash grew up. It is situated in the Dyess Colony of Arkansas, USA, a settlement created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of the economic recovery programme known as The New Deal to help the country get back on its feet after the Great Depression.
More than 500 impoverished farm families were resettled here, and Cash’s was one of them.
Along with his six siblings, Cash lived here from the age of three until he graduated from high school in 1950.
His experiences in Dyess inspired him to write various songs, including the likes of Pickin’ Time and Five Feet High and Rising.
You can now visit his home, which has been furnished as it would have been when he lived there. Like all the rooms in this humble house, there's not a lot of space for the large Cash family, but the interior is cosy and has all the essentials.
There's even the original wood-fired stove, which caused the burn marks in the linoleum that you can still see today.
Other perfectly preserved artefacts include this piano that belonged to Johnny’s mother, his father’s shaving mug, and the original flooring in his childhood bedroom and living room.
Period details found throughout the 1930s time capsule have been donated, such as a pedestal sewing machine and a battery-operated radio that Johnny is said to have played at night.
Although small, the one-storey house has windows on all sides, letting in plenty of light, as you can see in the dining room. Period items throughout are based on photos and recollections of two of Johny’s siblings – Tommy Cash and Joanne Cash Yates – even down to the kitchen ice box and corner cabinet, which have been painted apple-green to match the Cash siblings' memories.
The house was bought by Arkansas State University and restored in honour of the 'Man in Black', earning it a place on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.
Straight out of a fairytale comes Claude Monet’s oasis in Normandy, northern France. The French impressionist first noticed the idyllic village of Giverny when passing by on a train and, in 1883, rented a sprawling country estate and the land surrounding it.
Monet's dream was to purchase the mansion and create the now-famous gardens.
By 1890, the renowned impressionist painter had made enough money from the sale and exhibition of his paintings throughout Europe to purchase the house he had grown to love while renting.
Having left Paris in 1878, Monet made his Giverny abode the beating heart of his life and work until he died in 1926.
Monet directed the since-restored renovation of the home that art lovers can visit today – its dreamy pink façade and many of the kaleidoscopic interiors (such as the greens, yellows, and blues found throughout the home) were colours picked from his own painting palette.
Fortunately, Monet was able to buy the structural home and also the surrounding land, which he had big plans for...
Now that he was the landowner, he could create the enchanting gardens he had long envisioned. Throughout the years, he painted many of his most famous works here.
Though the paintings themselves are mainly on display at Musée Marmottan Monet and Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris, at Giverny, you can find the sources of inspiration: the Japanese bridge, the water lilies on the pond, and the many archways of lush, twisting vines.
The home is spread across two floors, and visitors can take a peek into where Monet read, lounged, ate, and worked.
Many of the private apartments of the family are also open to the public, as is the separate studio where he immortalised the botanical sights of the garden.
Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Ernest Hemingway bought this house in 1931 and lived there with the second of his four wives, Pauline Pfeiffer. The couple lived there with their two sons until 1939.
It was built in 1851 and still contains the very same furniture that Hemingway used when he occupied the home all those years ago.
Hemingway and his wife planned and built a 60-foot (18m) swimming pool on the grounds, where they’re pictured in this photo.
It was an extravagant luxury for a 1930s home and took the place of his boxing ring, which was moved to a site just a few blocks away.
This was Hemingway’s writing studio. It’s airy and uncluttered, featuring a red-tiled floor, hunting trophies, a table where his typewriter sits, and a significant collection of books. It’s on the second level, looking out over the lush gardens and is decorated with art, which Hemingway loved to collect.
It also has one of Pauline's chandeliers that she brought over from Paris.
Though Hemingway is known for his bold writings on masculinity, heroic fatalism, and the cold cruelties of life, he was as soft as a kitten when it came to his cats.
It is said that the writer admired a six-toed polydactyl cat named Snowball that belonged to a local mariner. The captain then gifted Hemingway his cat, which his sons renamed after the fairytale character Snow White. Many of the 40–50 cats who now live on the museum grounds are descendants of Snow White.
The spacious master bedroom has beautifully carved dark wood furniture and a centrepiece chandelier. Hemingway left Key West for Cuba in 1940, leaving Pauline to live in the house with their two sons, Patrick and Gregory, until her death in 1951.
The estate was bought by jewellery store owner Bernice Dixon from Hemingway’s sons in 1961. She opened the house as a museum in 1964.
This house was once the residence of a legendary rock and roll star. Jimi Hendrix lived on the upper floors of 23 Brook Street with his girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham, in 1968 and 1969.
He said it was his ‘first real home’ and spent time decorating the flat with curtains and cushions from British home furnishings store John Lewis and items from Portobello Road market.
Born Johnny Allen Hendrix in Seattle, Washington, in 1942, this highly influential guitarist began playing at age 15. Playing backup for the likes of Little Richard and The Isley Brothers, it wasn’t until Hendrix moved to England in late 1966 that he achieved real fame.
Within months of Chas Chandler becoming his manager, who was also a bassist for the British beat group The Animals, Hendrix had gained three UK top 10 hits with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. He's pictured here with Kathy in their London flat.
This image shows Hendrix's very 1960s bedroom. His flat is next door to the house once lived in by the German and British composer George Frideric Handel for 36 years, and unsurprisingly, they had very different interior design tastes.
In 2000, after being used as an office, Hendrix’s flat was taken over by the Handel House Trust and in 2014, restoration work began to return the flat to how it was when Hendrix lived there. It’s been open to visitors since 2016.
Next door lies another residence with musical connections. Handel was the first occupant of 25 Brook Street and moved into it in 1723. The townhouse was close to St James’s Palace, where he performed royal duties. Extensive research was conducted to understand the original layout, furnishings, and décor, using contemporary accounts, letters, and similar period homes as references.
This room is the largest in the house, where Handel composed many of his famous works, including 'Messiah'. It is furnished with period instruments, such as a harpsichord, and decorated with music manuscripts, portraits, and other artefacts related to his compositions and works from his collection of fine art.
Handel's bedroom has been restored to reflect the colours typical of an 18th-century Georgian home. Paint colours were matched to historical palettes, and furnishings were either original pieces from the period or high-quality reproductions. A central feature, the four-poster bed would have elegant carvings and luxurious drapery made from fine materials such as linen or cotton, which could be closed to keep in the warmth.
Handel lived, composed, and rehearsed at 25 Brook Street in London for approximately 36 years. He moved into the house in 1723 and remained there until his death in 1759.
In 1943, Louis Armstrong was already famous, but he chose to live in this modest house in the working-class neighbourhood of Corona, Queens, in New York City. He lived there with his wife, Lucille, and the house is still much as it was back then.
Now open as a museum, the property celebrates Armstrong's musical legacy and connection to the area.
Louis is known as one of the most influential figures in jazz, with a career spanning five decades and receiving multiple accolades. Born in New Orleans in 1901, the raspy-voiced trumpeter and vocalist was raised by his grandmother until the age of five, when he was returned to his mother.
Once Armstrong moved to New York in 1929, his reputation as a trumpeter and show-stealing vocalist was solidified on the jazz scene.
The house is very modest for a world-renowned musician. However, this glitzy bathroom injects some serious glamour into an otherwise very sensible home.
A painting of Lucille Armstrong also hangs on the living room wall (left). Louis and Lucille both lived at the property until they died in 1971 and 1983, respectively.
With its shiny blue cupboards and white Formica worktops, this retro kitchen gives us a view into the homes of the 1960s.
It has built-in dispensers for waxed paper and foil on the wall, and the stove was commissioned from Crown by Lucille.
In his elegant study hangs a painting of him by singer Tony Bennett. Repairs were carried out in 2002 before the museum opened in 2003, but very little has changed since the Armstrongs lived there.
Louis was proud of his roots. "We don’t need to move out in the suburbs to some big mansion with lots of servants and yardmen and things," he once said.
The King of Rock 'N' Roll bought Graceland, in his hometown of Memphis, in 1957 for $102,500 – that would be around $1.2 million (£893k) today. Elvis lived there until he died in 1977. Built in 1939, the estate was named Graceland after the original landowner, Grace Toof.
It had previously been a cattle farm and came with nearly 14 acres (5.7ha) of land. Elvis' parents found the property and put a $1,000 ($11.6k/£8.6k today) deposit down for it, while the singer finished filming on Jailhouse Rock.
The mansion spreads out over 17,000 square feet (1,579sqm) and attracts over 600,000 visitors a year, with people keen to see the place that this unrivalled musical icon called home.
The living room, where Elvis is playing bass guitar in this photo, was where he would receive guests. Lisa Marie Presley inherited the estate from her father after he died in 1977 when she was nine. Following her death in January 2023, the estate was passed to her daughters.
Elvis made many additions to the house, which was originally 10,000 square feet (929sqm), including adding the famous musical gates in 1957. But the décor in Graceland reflects the height of fashion in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Beautiful stained glass panels depicting peacocks stand out behind the luxurious cream sofa and armchairs. The vintage living room also features one of the three fireplaces in the mansion.
Downstairs in the basement, you’ll find Elvis’ extravagant pool room, based on a picture of an 18th-century billiards room that Elvis saw gracing the pages of a magazine. Next door to the King's TV room, where he would famously watch three screens at once, Graceland’s pool room boasts approximately 400 yards (366m) of patterned fabric, which it is said to have taken three men 10 days to cut and hang across the walls and ceiling.
Bearing a 'Do Not Touch' sign, Elvis’s pool table has remained in place since 1960 and was reportedly one of the first purchases he made after serving in the army.
Other rooms you can see on the tour include the jungle room: an amazing tiki-themed retreat which Elvis referred to simply as 'the den'. This cosy hangout was added to the back of the house in 1965 and was where he made his last recordings in 1976.
With faux timber panelling, a green shag carpet, and animal print everywhere, it's a fitting sanctuary for the man who made rhinestone flared jumpsuits his signature look.
Positioned in the glitzy city of Palm Springs, California, lies Frank Sinatra's iconic modern desert home.
A spectacular mid-century abode, Ol’ Blue Eyes lived here between 1947 and 1954, and sold the property in 1957. In fact, the iconic crooner commissioned the house to be built, paying architect E. Stewart Williams $150,000 (around $2.2m/£1.6m today) to design and build the estate.
Known as Twin Palms, Sinatra's house played host to various celebrity parties, movie sets, and ferocious rows between Sinatra and his first and second wives, respectively, Nancy Barbato and movie star Ava Gardner.
It was thanks to Sinatra that Palm Springs quickly became the ultimate destination for the Hollywood elite.
Sinatra initially hired Williams to design a Georgian-style mansion, but the architect managed to persuade the singer to go with a design that was more appropriate for its desert setting, resulting in this low, sleek style that's become synonymous with mid-century homes in Palm Springs.
The Rat Pack member demanded that the house be ready for Christmas so he could host a lavish party for all his friends. This left Williams with just a few months to design and construct the property. The house is pictured here in 2005.
Building work took place at an alarming rate (and cost) and was ready in time for New Year's Eve. The house soon set the standard for Hollywood artists and embodied the casual, indoor/outdoor lifestyle that California was known for.
Guests are seen testing the water here in 1951 at one of Sinatra's many pool parties.
Now a museum and holiday rental, Twin Palms has been beautifully restored while retaining many of its original design details and furnishings. Sinatra was renowned for his talents as well as his temper, and one of the original bathroom sinks still features a crack, caused when Sinatra threw a champagne bottle at Gardner.
The singer's bedroom, in which you can now sleep, and his iconic piano also remain untouched, revealing the life of one of the world's most celebrated artists.
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