Last year the Victoria and Albert Museum opened a 90,000 item archive from David Bowie at the David Bowie Centre in east London.
Late next year, The Heritage of London Trust plans on opening the home where Bowie – born David Jones – and his parents lived from the age of eight until he was 20 working as a “starving artist” musician.
The home, in the London suburb of Bromley is being refurbished to reflect domestic life in the 1950s and 1960s.
It has been 10 years since Bowie died at the age of 69 as a result of cancer; but his legacy and music live on and now fans will soon have a new destination and an insight into a young David Bowie who admittedly spent a great deal of time in his nine by 10 foot bedroom as a child.
Childhood friend George Underwood noted, “we spent so much time together, listening to and playing music.”
He added, “I’ve heard a lot of people say David’s music saved them or changed their life. It’s amazing that he could do that and even more amazing that it all started here, from such small beginnings, in this house. We were dreamers, and look what he became.”
With support from Bowie’s estate, The Heritage of London Trust has received a 500 pound donation toward renovating the 19th-century railway worker’s cottage and is hoping to raise another 1.2 million pounds to complete the project for an opening to the public late next year.
After leaving that small Bromley bedroom, David Bowie became one of the biggest artists in the world; traveling through genres and themes as easily as his songs climbed the charts.
It is unknown how much the Heritage Trust paid for the home but surrounding homes in the area have been sold for half a million pounds and up.
Noting that the home will offer visitors an insight into Bowie’s early life, Heritage of London Trust director Nicola Stacey said, “I’m keen that it doesn’t feel static, it doesn’t, feel sterile, there’s a sense of the family living there. And a sense of that you’ve really walked into David Bowie’s life in the 1960s.”