Elton John's House

Reginald Dwight from Pinner became Elton John, a chart act since 1970 whose “Candle in the Wind 1997” is still the best-selling UK single since the charts began. This house, not Windsor, is his and David Furnish’s London base.

In 1792 the whole Norland estate went to Benjamin Vulliamy, the Pall Mall watchmaker, and his family held it until 1839. Solicitor Charles Richardson then took the 52 acres and started building to Robert Cantwell’s plan that October.

The council’s appraisal describes the cul-de-sac as 2 terraces of modest stock brick, one side behind small front gardens, the other behind lightwells. It has sat in the Norland Conservation Area since January 29, 1969.

The lane began as a mews, but not one original stable survives; later rebuilding gave it mansard roofs and rendered fronts over the cobbles. In 1940 a high-explosive bomb fell on Royal Crescent, immediately to the southwest.

Elton bought here in 1992 and filled it with blond Biedermeier, a taste he traced to a Karelian birch tallboy he saw at Freddie Mercury’s house. “Blond wood glows with the colors of the sun,” he told Architectural Digest.

HM Land Registry’s open price-paid file records every house sale in England and Wales since 1995. It lists 41 sales on this street in that time and none for this house, which fits 1 owner since 1992.

In 2003 he sent much of the contents, historic paintings and furniture among them, to auction so he could redecorate. The one room he has shown since is the library, in an Instagram post during the 2020 lockdown.