Garden Lodge — Freddie Mercury's London Home

Garden Lodge at 1 Logan Place in Kensington is the house where Freddie Mercury lived from 1980 until his death on 24 November 1991. Mercury purchased the Victorian property and transformed it over the following decade into an opulent personal sanctuary filled with art, antiques, and Japanese objects — a private world entirely at odds with the theatricality of his public persona. He entertained lavishly but also retreated there as his health declined following his HIV diagnosis. He died in the house at the age of 45, one day after publicly acknowledging his AIDS diagnosis. The cause of death was bronchial pneumonia brought on by AIDS.

Mercury bought Garden Lodge while Queen was at the height of their global success, and the house served as his home base through the band's most productive years — the recording of The Game, Flash Gordon, Hot Space, The Works, A Kind of Magic, The Miracle, and Innuendo. He shared the house at various times with his partner Jim Hutton, his personal assistant Peter Freestone, and his former partner Mary Austin, who inherited the house upon his death. Austin has lived there ever since and has maintained it as a private home.

Garden Lodge is a private residence and is not open to the public. Mary Austin has consistently declined to commercialise or open the property. The external wall of the house has become one of the most extensively covered tribute walls in London, covered continuously by fans with messages, drawings, and photographs. The wall is in a small cul-de-sac off Pemberton Walk and is freely accessible. It is one of the most visited informal music memorials in the city.