Ringo Starr’s six-bed Surrey retreat will be demolished
It was once home to Ringo Starr and John Lennon and even appeared in The Magical Mystery Tour – for decades Sunny Heights has been a place of pilgrimage for fans of The Beatles.
But Starr’s former estate is now set for demolition after being bought by Russian oligarch Vladimir Scherbakov, 55, who wants to bulldoze the famous home and build a new one in its place.
After the drummer bought the Surrey mansion in 1965, it became where band retreated from the public eye. It even had its own bar on site, The Flying Cow, where Starr would play host to his friends away from the limelight.
He bought the mock-Tudor mansion with his then wife Maureen Starkey for just £37,000 ($57,000). Just a short drive from both Lennon’s Kenwood mansion and George Harrison’s Kinfauns estate, it quickly became an important part of life among the Beatles.
One of the scenes from their film The Magical Mystery Tour, when Starr projected images onto George Harrison’s face, was filmed in its extensive gardens. They also used it as the location for photo shoots. Starr eventually moved out in 1968 and it was briefly called home by Lennon and Yoko Ono, after they sold their nearby Kenwood estate, before it was sold itself the following year. Subsequent owners always appeared to respect the home’s musical legacy until Scherbakov bought it for £5.8million ($9million) in 2013, paying for it in full up-front.
By: Sam Creighton
Source: Daily Mail
