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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Meghann Murdock

For work and play: film director Stanley Kubrick's former home and studio is for sale

The former home and studio of Stanley Kubrick, the late American film director behind cult classics such as Spartacus and The Shining, has been listed for sale in Elstree, Hertfordshire.

A short drive from Elstree Studios, the nine-bedroom home has a blue plaque dedicated to Kubrick and has been listed for sale for £6,950,000.

Stanley Kubrick lived at Abbots Mead with his wife Christiane and their three children for 14 years, having bought it from the father of music mogul Simon Cowell in 1965. During his time at the Elstree mansion, Kubrick worked on iconic films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Barry Lyndon.

“The close proximity to Elstree Studios made it the perfect base for Kubrick and his family, but he also worked a lot from home – carefully managing all aspects of four films from his extraordinary body of work from within its four walls," said Steven Spencer at Savills in Rickmansworth who are marketing the property.

The main bedroom has an open fireplace with carved marble surround, and overlooks the gardens (Savills)

Having been extended and renovated over the years, Abbots Mead now spans a vast 7,700sq ft of living space over three floors. Original features in the 19th-century home include ornate cornices, open fireplaces, original doors and bay windows.

Along with the nine bedrooms, there's a grand dining room, a farmhouse-style kitchen and a separate studio.

Stanley Kubrick worked on films such as The Shining and A Clockwork Orange from the home (REUTERS)

Outside, set in just over two acres, there is a swimming pool, a sauna, two greenhouses, workshops and studios, plus an orchard.

Above one of the garages sits a two-bedroom apartment. There's also Abbots Mead Lodge, a four-bedroom house with its own garden.

Near to Abbots Mead is the Manor Hotel in Barnet Lane which featured in A Clockwork Orange when Alex the Droog is seen jumping from a window to avoid listening to Beethoven. An article on Kubrickian locations by the British Film Institute describes Abbots Mead as "one of the most important buildings in British film history" for being Kubrick’s home and studio during an important period of creativity.

Abbots Mead has been extended and renovated over the years (Savills)

In 2015, Kubrick's artist step-daughter Katharina returned to Abbots Mead for the BBC's The One Show. She explained that her father edited A Clockwork Orange in one of the garages.

She said: "One Sunday, some girls came to the door and daddy opened it."

"They said, 'Is Stanley Kubrick here?' and he said, 'No, I'm sorry he's not home.' I was laughing at the top of the stairs."

Kubrick edited A Clockwork Orange in one of the garages at Abbots Mead (Savills)

Katherina, who was 12 when her parents bought the house, said her friends used to love it there. "They thought I had a moviestar life," she said.

A feature for TIME described Kubrick's home in 1971 as: "a large house that contains, besides [Kubrick's] offices, a computer, assorted optical and editing equipment, and a ping pong table inside a tent on the back lawn."

Today, the swimming pool is located on the site of the old ping pong tent.

The family moved from Abbots Mead to Childwickbury Manor near St Albans in 1979.

Kubrick died in 1999 aged 70, just six days after showing the final cut of Eyes Wide Shut to Warner Bros, and is buried in the grounds of Childwickbury Manor.

His artist wife Christiane, 93, continues to work and live in the manor house. Northern Irish fashion designer Jonathan Anderson — recently named Dior's new artistic director — transposed some of Christiane's paintings seen in Eyes Wide Shut, and one by Katharina, on to his collections for JW Anderson last year.

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