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 to Elvis, Judy Garland and Frida Kahlo, these former stars’ houses have been carefully restored and preserved, to give us a fascinating insight into their lives. Let’s step back in time and explore these time capsules of notoriety…
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Frida Kahlo’s Blue House, Mexico City, Mexico
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 the July of 1954.
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Frida Kahlo’s Blue House, Mexico City, Mexico
Also known as La Casa Azul, the property can be found in one of 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 now iconic wheelchair.
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Frida Kahlo’s Blue House, Mexico City, Mexico
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 of inside space and boasts some of the painter’s most important works, including Long Live Life and Portrait of My Father Wilhelm Kahlo.
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Frida Kahlo’s Blue House, Mexico City, Mexico
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.
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Judy Garland’s childhood home, Minnesota, USA
Judy Garland’s iconic depiction of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz made her a global star and her much-quoted line from The Wizard of Oz ‘there’s no place like home’ couldn’t be more perfect for the place where she spent her early years. The pretty white clapboard house in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, was built in 1892 but was bought by Garland’s parents in 1919. It was first family home and Garland lived here from 1922, when she was born, until 1926.
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Judy Garland’s childhood home, Minnesota, USA
Stepping inside is like going back in time. The house had been remodelled by the previous owner in 1915, four years before Garland’s family moved in. It now forms part of the Judy Garland Museum and it was restored between 1995 and 1996, to look like it would have in the mid-1920s. The museum used old photographs to truly capture the heart of Garland’s former home.
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Judy Garland’s childhood home, Minnesota, USA
Framed family portraits, vintage clothing and cherished childhood items are placed in situ for visitors to admire. This bedroom, decorated in pretty purples and greens, could have been where Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm) slept as a baby with her parents. She had two older sisters who she performed with from an early age.
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Judy Garland’s childhood home, Minnesota, USA
Once a notable celebrity home, The Judy Garland Museum has been open since 1975 and was one of the first celebrity museums of its kind in the USA. Other exhibits include a test dress from The Wizard of Oz, which forms part of the largest collection of Judy Garland memorabilia in the world.
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Ernest Hemingway’s Key West home, Florida, USA
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. It also boasts the six-toed polydactyl cats descended from his own beloved pet, Snow White.
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Ernest Hemingway’s Key West home, Florida, USA
Hemingway and his wife planned and built a 60-foot long swimming pool in 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.
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Ernest Hemingway’s Key West home, Florida, USA
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 Hemmingway loved to collect. It also has one of Pauline’s chandeliers that she brought over from Paris. Could it have inspired some of the world’s best books?
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Ernest Hemingway’s Key West home, Florida, USA
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 her 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.
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George Washington’s 18th-century mansion, Virginia, USA
The house on the Mount Vernon estate was built by George Washington’s father in 1734 but the USA’s first president (from 1789 to 1797) began running the estate in 1754. Over the following 45 years, he expanded the home to create the 21-room mansion that still stands proudly today.
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George Washington’s 18th-century mansion, Virginia, USA
The stunning dining room was part of the original residence built in 1734. It was updated in 1775 when Washington decided to add the elaborate plaster ceiling. The verdigris-green colour came in 1785, which he described as ‘grateful to the eye’.
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George Washington’s 18th-century mansion, Virginia, USA
Unlike the great homes of the Gettys and the Vanderbilts, George and Martha Washington’s bedchamber is decorated in a simple style. It was where Washington died from a throat infection in 1799 and the large bed is six feet, six inches long to accommodate the six-foot-two man.
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George Washington’s 18th-century mansion, Virginia, USA
This double-height room was called the New Room by Washington as it was the last one he added to the house. It was designed to showcase the fine craftsmanship of the nation and was used for receiving visitors and occasional dining. Due to its large size, it was also the perfect place for displaying their various pictures and paintings.
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Charles Dickens’ family home, London, UK
This house in Bloomsbury, which is now a museum, is where the English novelist Charles Dickens lived during the early years of his fame. He wrote Oliver Twist, The Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby there and raised his three oldest children with his wife Catherine.
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Charles Dickens’ family home, London, UK
Dickens wrote with his quill pen in his book-lined study at the centre of the house. Always blessed with a prolific output, he composed newspaper articles, essays, short stories and novels here and was often inspired by the people he encountered day to day, including guests and servants.
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Charles Dickens’ family home, London, UK
This lavish dining room with its vivid blue walls is where Dickens and his wife would have entertained some of the most important people of the day. The couple moved into the house in 1837 – just a few months before Queen Victoria came to the throne.
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Charles Dickens’ family home, London, UK
The drawing room is decorated in an opulent style with long red drapes, fine carved furniture and works of art on the walls, as well as a piano and desk. Visitors to the house can also see the family’s bedchambers and servants’ quarters.
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Jimi Hendrix’s (and Handel’s) Mayfair home, London, UK
This house was once the residence of a bona fide 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 John Lewis and items from Portobello Road market.
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Jimi Hendrix’s (and Handel’s) Mayfair home, London, UK
The flat is next door to the house lived in by the German and British composer George Frideric Handel for 36 years. In 2000, after being used as an office, Hendrix’s flat was taken over by the Handel House Trust and from 2014 it was restored to how it was when he lived there. It’s been open to visitors since 2016.
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Jimi Hendrix’s (and Handel’s) Mayfair home, London, UK
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. The largest room in the house would have contained Handel’s harpsichord or organ and some of his fine art collection.
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Jimi Hendrix’s (and Handel’s) Mayfair home, London, UK
This beautiful bedchamber has blue panelled walls paired with red curtains at the windows, and on the four-poster bed. Handel composed and rehearsed at Brook Street and eventually died there in 1759.
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Louis Armstrong’s house, New York, USA
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.
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Louis Armstrong’s house, New York, USA
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.
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Louis Armstrong’s house, New York, USA
The home is very modest for a world-renowned musician, but is full of mementos from his life in jazz, such as this little figurine that stands on the piano in the living room (right). A painting of Lucille Armstrong also hangs on the living room wall. Louis and Lucille both lived at the property until they died – in 1971 and 1983 respectively.
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Louis Armstrong’s house, New York, USA
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 been 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.
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Emily Dickinson’s forever home, Massachusetts, USA
This historic homestead in the town of Amherst was built for poet Emily Dickinson’s grandparents in around 1813. She lived in the western half of the building from her birth in 1830 and, as she never married, stayed there for most of her life.
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Emily Dickinson’s forever home, Massachusetts, USA
Emily Dickinson’s corner bedroom on the second level was where she spent most of her time and wrote nearly 1,800 poems, most of which were unpublished during her lifetime. Yet luckily, the works have found devoted fans in every generation since. You can rent the room for up to two hours, in order to find inspiration of your own.
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Emily Dickinson’s forever home, Massachusetts, USA
The homestead has been part of the Emily Dickinson Museum since it opened in 2003, together with the Evergreens – the house next door where her brother Austin and his family lived. This is one of its rooms, decorated in soothing greens with beautiful big windows and elegant hardwood floors.
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Emily Dickinson’s forever home, Massachusetts, USA
Fourteen acres of land surround the Homestead. Emily Dickinson loved nature and tended the large garden with her sister Lavinia. Many of her poems were inspired by the natural world and you can now take an audio tour of the grounds.
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Mark Twain’s Hartford home, Connecticut, USA
Mark Twain (the pen name of Sam Clemens) and his wife Livy, started to build this striking red-brick house in 1873 and it was ready to move in to the following year. They lived there until 1891, when Twain grappled with financial problems and had to move his family to Europe.
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Mark Twain’s Hartford home, Connecticut, USA
Mark Twain lived in the house with his three daughters. His son, who was born before the family moved to Hartford, died from diphtheria at the age of two. The house was restored in 1963 and opened to the public as a museum in 1974, on its 100th anniversary.
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Mark Twain’s Hartford home, Connecticut, USA
This opulent dining room has carved dark wood furniture, floor-length drapes and a luxurious rug, a display of his early wealth and success. Works of art adorn the walls. Mark Twain spent his most productive years in this house and wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn here.
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Mark Twain’s Hartford home, Connecticut, USA
The library is even more lavish. With a beautifully carved fireplace, it’s the perfect spot for curling up with a book on cold evenings. It features deep blue wallpaper and a bold carpet. Every winter, the house is decorated as it would have been during the family Christmases that Mark Twain spent there.
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Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion, Tennessee, USA
The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll bought Graceland, in his hometown of Memphis, in 1957 for $102,500 (£77k). 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 of land. Elvis’ parents found the property and put a $1,000 (£754) deposit down for it, while the singer finished filming on Jailhouse Rock.
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Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion, Tennessee, USA
The mansion spreads out over 17,000 square feet 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. After he died, the Graceland estate found itself struggling financially, so has been open to the public for tours since 1982.
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Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion, Tennessee, USA
Elvis made many additions to the house, which was originally 10,000 square feet, 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.
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Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion, Tennessee, USA
Other rooms you can see on the tour include the jungle room: an amazing tiki-themed man cave 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.
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Johnny Cash’s boyhood home, Arkansas, USA
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, which was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as part of the New Deal to help the country recover after the Great Depression. More than 500 impoverished farm families were resettled here, and Cash’s was one of them.
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Johnny Cash’s boyhood home, Arkansas, USA
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’.
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Johnny Cash’s boyhood home, Arkansas, USA
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 an original stove, which would have provided the Cash family with warmth in the winter.
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Johnny Cash’s boyhood home, Arkansas, USA
Although small, the one-storey house has windows on all sides letting in plenty of light, as you can see in the dining room. 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.
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Frank Sinatra’s desert modern home, California, USA
Positioned in the glitzy city of Palm Springs, California, lies Frank Sinatra’s iconic desert modern 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 just $150,000 (£113k) to design and build the estate.
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Frank Sinatra’s desert modern home, California, USA
Known as Twin Palms, the house played host to various celebrity parties, movie sets and ferocious rows between Sinatra and his wives, Nancy Barbato and Ava Gardner. It was thanks to Sinatra that Palm Springs fast became the ultimate destination for the Hollywood elite. Wanting a unique home, he 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.
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Frank Sinatra’s desert modern home, California, USA
The Rat Pack member apparently demanded that the house be ready for Christmas, so he could host a lavish party for all of his friends. This left Williams with just a few months to design and construct the property. Building work took place at an alarming rate (and cost), and was ready in time for New Year’s Eve. The mid-century abode soon set the standard for Hollywood artists and embodied the casual, indoor-outdoor lifestyle that California was known for.
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Frank Sinatra’s desert modern home, California, USA
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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