Daltrey is not the only leaping lord to be found in these parts. More and more, the ownership list of Britain’s AONBs (Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty) now reads like a registry of rock. From Genesis to Led Zeppelin, musicians are buying up the best properties in the rolling hills west and south of London. After the war, when Old Money was replaced by New Money, wags dubbed the area the Stockbroker Belt. Lately, with Beatles in their midst, they’ve begun to call it the Rockbroker Belt.
Apparently even rebels have a strong homing instinct. “It has to do with the British ideal–the whole tradition of the country gentleman,” says estate agent Antony Wardell, who sells country homes in Berkshire. “These people are Englishmen first and pop stars second. And whether you are born in the East End or with a silver spoon in your mouth, the fantasy of country life is buried in your psyche. Once you’ve got the loot, you move to the country.”
The first wave came in the late ’60s, along with the global boom in British music. Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck were two of the first arrivistes to buy into the country-gent image. “I like to think, altruistically, that we were saving those houses, " says Perry Press, whose estate agency, Pereds, opened in 1967 with a clientele composed almost exclusively of rock stars and actors. “It took rich people to take over those places, and the younger ones had energy and interest.” After Jones and Humperdinck came The Beatles (Ringo bought Tom Jones’s spread), some members of the Rolling Stones and Alvin Lee, whose band Ten Years After took off at Woodstock. At first, recalls Press, “people did tend to get on their guard” about rich, long-haired buyers. On one shopping excursion, Press and George Harrison were reportedly kicked off the property. (Press later arranged for Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page to buy it.
These days rock stars actually put their names on waiting lists for country homes. Most shell out between $2.5 and $3.5 million, which buys a house with five to eight bedrooms, staff quarters and maybe a swimming pool and tennis court. Then there’s the upkeep, which on a $2.5 million house can cost more than $60,000 a year. “If you need to ask how much it costs, " says Press, “you can’t afford it.'
Most of the rock set is clustered in the lush Home Counties, not too far from London or Heathrow Airport, but rural nonetheless. George Harrison lives at Friar Park, a Gothic spread at Henley on Thames; The Who’s Pete Townshend owns Tennyson’s house in Twickenham. Nearby are Who member John Entwistle, Elton John and various members of Bad Company and Deep Purple. To the south in Surrey the band Genesis uses an old farm in Chiddingfold as its headquarters. Nearear Cranleigh, Eric Clapton lives in a mansion close by his best pal, Phil Collins. At the very end of the rock-and-roll corridor, in the tiny village of Peasmarsh, lies Paul McCartney’s farm, nicknamed “Paulditz.”
Fantasy ingrained: Once installed, these rock stars often fall into the country gentleman’s leisure pursuits. Clapton is captain of his local cricket team. Steve Winwood, of Gloucestershire, hunts pheasant. Harrison has immersed himself in his gardens, designing his grounds in the style of 17th-century architect Inigo Jones.
Despite their best efforts, not all rockocrats win easy acceptance. One staffer at Country Living magazine dismisses the whole lot as fakes. “They just create the ideal of what country life should be,” he says. “They’ve always lived in a fantasy world, and they want it to continue.” And as fantasy worlds go, the countryside is tailor-made for wealthy, middle-aged dreamers. Rather than die before they get old, as Daltrey has often sung, British rock stars have now chosen to live like the gents they once loved to hate. It’s easy. All you need is loot.
