Kenwood: summer, 1967 - part 1.

Bruno Dupont has sent more pics and information regarding the visit of Swedish schoolboy Richard Mühlrad to Kenwood in the summer of 1967. The new material comes from an old Scandinavian fan mag, and whilst not of the greatest image-quality, the latest photos are, nevertheless, fascinating.
I've used one of the (admittedly imperfect) online translators to decode the original Swedish captions, and fairly amusing reading they make too.
In the above pic, you can just see John and Terry Doran sitting in front of the dining room window, John (on the left) with meisterwerk-in-progress on lap, drawing away. But what is that black shape in front of them? According to the original caption...
"John Lennon's house, typically English, in a suburb of London. Richard Mühlrad found the house while strolling around the town." (Oh really??) "He went in and knocked. No one answered. But John Lennon's cat strolled leisurely by. Richard followed - and found John sitting with his gardener, drawing."
His gardener? I must admit (assuming the translation is correct) that raised a chuckle round these parts. (Mind you, Terry Doran did pretty much everything else at Kenwood, so he might as well have done a spot of weeding too, I suppose.) Presumably, this misnomer was down to John, being "foony".
But getting back to the above photo, and yes, that does indeed look like a cat, leading the way round to where John and the green-fingered Mr Doran were sitting. As we've seen before, here's what Richard found:


The following pic, showing Richard and John, has also been on these pages before. According to the caption, it was taken by that trusty gardener:


This pic, however, is new - and very interesting it is too. A look over John's shoulder at what he was working on that day:


Note the Vogue tea-tray (at least, I think that's what it is). I've previously guessed that the drawing was probably the charity Christmas card that appeared at the end of 1967; but I can't see anything in the new pic which exactly matches. However, that doesn't neccesarily mean this is a different drawing: John worked on this quite complex piece over several days, and it seems to be at an early stage in the over the shoulder shot. You can see several faces; stylistically it is similar. So I'd say that it is probably the same picture, though re-worked considerably before completion. (Unless, o' course, anyone out there recognises it as something else...):


Finally, Richard got a quick look in the sunroom. The caption states that he didn't get to see any of the rest of the house, but that John didn't mind him taking a snap in here. Interestingly, the caption further identifies the guitar that can be seen (side on) as being John's "first". Hmmmm:


Now, all that is great enough. However, not only did Richard get the above photos, but John also agreed to an interview, which Bruno has found too. I'm going to have this properly translated by a Swedish friend of mine, and will post it when I've done so; it's not that long, but it does put words to these fantastic pics.
Huge thanks to Bruno yet again for uncovering and sharing this material.

Kenwood: sunroom sofa, 1985.

Re-upholstered and sitting out on the grass, for reasons of...errr: The sunroom sofa, circa 1985.
It's currently on display at the Hard Rock Cafe, Orlando. This is a guess, but how it got there may have been roughly as follows: When John finally moved out of Kenwood in the early part of 1969, he and Yoko were without a home. Sunny Heights, vacated by Ringo at the end of 1968, was without a buyer, so John/Yoko moved in for several months, taking the sofa with them. The Ono-Lennons, of course, eventually moved to Tittenhurst; the iconic couch got left behind, and thus gifted to the Starkeys.
The familiar yellow cashmir covering, worn out from the amount of time John's arse had spent parked on it, needed seeing to; so Maureen, a dab hand at such things, gave it a new, blue covering.
When she and Ringo split, the sofa fell into her hands (not literally), and was later sold at Sotheby's, (coincidentally) to her future husband Isaac Tigrett (founder of the Hard Rock Cafe)(or else to someone who then sold it to Mr Tigrett)...and so to Florida (honey).
Many thanks to Jon Warren for the pics and information.
*UPDATE* The date on this post was originally 1988, but it turns out these pics date from around 1985, so I changed it. It also turns out that the couch was sold at Sotheby's; again, I've altered the post to reflect the new information. There has been some monkey business with the hole - I'll do a whole hole post...later.

Kenwood: sunroom - 2006 & 1968.

A ca.2006 photo showing the other end of the sunroom in its modern day incarnation. The current structure is slightly bigger, and certainly more substantial than the sunroom which John had built, presumably sometime in late 1964/early 1965. There doesn't seem to be any record of planning permission for John's sunroom, and it is quite likely that none was ever actually sought.
As we've seen, although the current sunroom occupies roughly the same space as the Lennon-model, it's not the same physical structure. However, the external terrace wall has survived intact:


In John's day, the internal sunroom entrance led directly into the kitchen, and the sunroom itself was probably intended to be an equivalent of the small room off the kitchen at Mendips, where John spent much of his time when at Mimi's.
The Lennon-era kitchen is long gone, of course, and the present sunroom (or garden room as the estate agent would have it) leads to an internal hallway.

Kenwood: sunroom - December, 1968.

Another fascinating image from December 1968 has surfaced. Although it's a variation on a theme, the most interesting thing is the presence of the den piano, occupying the space where the Fool painted keyboard used to be. Therein lies a tale...but I have no idea what it is. The last sighting of the Fool piano was in June of '68, where it can be seen in the home movie partially shot in the sunroom during the filming of Smile and Two Virgins. John and Yoko moved out of Kenwood shortly thereafter, of course, to allow Cynthia to move back in, before returning at the end of November (see posts passim).
What happened to the Fool piano in the interim? Did they take it with them to Montagu Square? How did it end up at George's country pile Friar Park? I dunno.
The den piano and the footstools that can be seen above, and in other shots taken in the sunroom in December 1968, were eventually moved to Tittenhurst, and presumably now reside in the Dakota:

May 1967: part 2.2 - Hille House & yet more sunroom detritus.

Speaking of odd coincidences - the above photo of the Beatles at Hille House, Brian Epstein's private office, taken in May 1967 (though not, I think, on May 18). Mark Lewisohn has been in touch, and he reckons the picture in the previous post was also taken in this location. That makes sense, so I dug out the above photo to illustrate - and realised that this was the very one that Ken "BZ" Wood was referring to in his comment on the TeenBeat post.
Thus, this also provides a closer look at another bit of John's sunroom junk.

Kenwood: TeenBeat magazine - April, 1968.

Ron de Bruijn has sent in some more material, this time from a 1968 fan magazine: TeenBeat. The cropped, lo-res colour sunroom shot is familiar, but it's great to finally see a good quality scan. ("Kenwood porn" anyone?):


Of course, I couldn't resist comping both of the above to gain the widest perspective:


The pick of the pics has to be the following, however. I'd never seen this poolside variant before - and I'd guess that since its publication in April 1968, and with the obvious exception of those fortunate enough to own a copy of the magazine in question, no-one else has either:


It's another great shot, and begs all the usual questions. (Again, these are all quite hi-res, so click on them for the big picture.)
Many thanks to Ron for sharing this material.

Kenwood: sunroom - June 29, 1967.

June 29, 1967 was a busy day chez Lennon. Not only was he playing host to Simon and Marijke and being fitted with new clothing courtesy of a French seamstress (or rather "een jonge Franse modeontwerpster"), but he also, as any fule noe, had the Beatles Book monthly round to record all this and more, photographically; and praise be to the church of your choice that he did, for otherwise there would be no visual record of Kenwood's interior at that time, give or take the odd fan photo of the sunroom.
So here is another scan from the Dutch magazine PEP, ca 1967; I'd never seen this particular photo before, and it's surprising (and surprisingly good) that "new" shots from this session continue to surface.
While I'm about it, I may as well also include the following - comped, imperfectly, from two images in an attempt to gain a whole wall perspective; which didn't exactly work, but nevertheless...


Huge thanks again to Ron de Bruijn for the first photo.

Kenwood: sunroom - doll chair.

As regulars will know, the sunroom at Kenwood, particularly during the high jinks of the latter Lennon-era, was a veritable smorgasbord of the abnormal and the atypical, the quaint and the queer, the uncommon and the unheard of, the fantastic and the, dare one say it, far out; much of it a reflection of John's pell-mell, fitfully effervescent personality - stare into the newfangled colour television, and the newfangled colour television also stares into you. Or something. I sometimes feel that John's drug use may have been somewhat exaggerated over the years (though it appears to be the one thing everyone agrees on), but there is little doubt that the sunroom, as constituted throughout the shiny summer of '67, resembled nothing so much as a cocoon for acid-heads. Odd illustrations, old photographs and caricatures festooned upon the walls, the psychedelic piano to the left, the sticker, poster and mystical detritus strewn cupboards to the right, a panoramic view through windows that were doors, over a garden that resembled a curious (and beautiful) park more than it did a garden in front - yes, this is probably one reason why the room is a source of such fascination to Kenwoodites. Every time you examine a picture of the place, a new detail presents itself. In this case, we have the odd little armchair evident in the photo of John being fitted for a jacket in June, 1967. You can see it to the left, under the Monterey poster. It's clearly not big enough for an adult. Doubtless meant for Julian, it was nevertheless occasionally occupied by a somewhat creepy clown doll - and both chair and doll can be seen in colour above. Many thanks to Lana Baker for sending this pic.

Sunroom: variants, June 1967.

The most famous sunroom pics turn up with slight variations from time to time, including in colour. Here are 3 variations, and a couple of comps to give the widest perspective.

Sunroom: circa August, 1967.

We´ve seen these before, but here they are in slightly better (or at least different) quality. John is noteable by his absence. Was he the photographer? Or off engaged in a more prosaic, possibly odiferous activity? Palpable nonsense.

Kenwood: sunroom & drawing room, December 1968.

Two more pics from December, 1968. A slightly melancholy shot of the sunroom - the picture wall is almost empty - either Cyn has taken them, or else they have been packed away in preparation for leaving Kenwood.
The other one is the main living room.
Thanks to Bruno Dupont for sending these photos.

Kenwood: summer 1967 re-posts, plus one new one.

More goodies on the way, rest assured, but there is a great set of pics building up from this day, and I thought I might re-post them all collectively, together with a new close-up of John from the same day. I'll bet there are yet more of these. I mean, would you have taken just six?

Sunroom: John, Marijke and piano...

Another very evocative photo, courtesy of Joe Baiardi.

Sunroom: picture wall close up.

Another close-up, this time providing a chance, should you click on it, to examine some of the ephemera on the sunroom wall. The lava lamp to the right gave off a green light, according to Peter Brown. No comment, says I.

Sunroom: Safe As Milk wall close-up.

Close-up views of the odd assortment of items on the Safe As Milk wall. John looks, to use the parlance of the "hippies", well miffed, innits.

Sunroom: Monterey Pop poster.

Sunroom: summer 1968, more views.

Some more views of the sunroom taken from the 1968 home movie, which I have attempted to brighten up using my tool. (My photo-editing tool, that is).(That's enough).

Kenwood: sunroom - corrected re-post.

I've re-posted this shot of John as it was the wrong way round before - the sliding sunroom door should be on the right...and these things are...errr... mutter etc.