Bob Dylan's owners, Kurt Cobain Homes, explain their new purchases – Rolling Stone

Bill Pagel knows what you think, so he will say it for you. Last month, the resident of Hibbing, Minnesota, purchased the two-story house where Bob Dylan lived between 1948 and 1959. It follows his purchase of a dwelling in Duluth in 2001, where the singer and his family lived before Hibbing. "When you start picking houses – and I have two – I think that's when you should probably seek professional help," laughs Pagel. "It's the end-of-stage collection."

Rock memories have been a flourishing market for many years, but this decade has entered the field of collectors at one percent. A handwritten draft of Dylan's lyrics of "Like a Rolling Stone" cost $ 2,045,000 in 2014, about the same time that one of Ringo Starr's major Beatle-era drum kits was auctioned off. to $ 2.2 million. In 2011, the red and black Michael Jackson Thriller The jacket cost $ 1.8 million.

"What has happened in the last 20 years is that [music collectibles] have become the new art, "says Darren Julien, whose auction house Julien has notably participated in the auctions of Jackson and Starr. "[Millionaires] are starting to spend a lot of money for an item that you would normally spend for high end art works. It's much sexier to hang a guitar on a wall than a Monet ".

In these very expensive circumstances, what is a less wealthy fan but just as passionate to do? Think of smaller and slightly more affordable items. Last December, the Bruce Springsteen Thunder Road manuscript was sold for $ 62,500 at Sotheby's; Julien's was involved in the sale of a Neil Diamond convertible ($ 86,000) and a wooden letter "A" ($ 6,000) that Barbra Streisand kept in a New York apartment, representing the missing vowel of his first name. "Product prices are coming out of this market, so they're looking for something else. everything that an artist or celebrity has touched, "says Julien. "They want a car belonging to a celebrity or objects of their personal life."

The latest twist, more affordable than that of, for example, the guitar Duane Allman's "Layla" Gibson, sold last week for $ 1.25 million – concerns the homes of children or teenagers of big rock stars . Last year, Kurt Cobain's family home in family-owned Aberdeen, Wash., Was sold for $ 225,000 to Lee Bacon, a lighting design consultant and grunge adept. This summer, a modest 1,200 square foot home in Gainesville, Fla., Where Tom Petty lived in his youth, started selling. A California real estate agent and a devoted Petty admirer expressed their interest and filed a deposit, with the aim of helping to turn it into a museum or historical monument.

In the end, Petty's former wife, Jane, bought it and bought it for $ 175,000. Talk to Rolling stoneJane Petty says she does not plan to turn the house into any type of museum or commercial tourist attraction. "I do not know what we're going to do yet," she says. "We did not decide. It is in a very nice area and I would not like to disturb it. I just thought we should own them in the family. (Michael Jackson's "Neverland" ranch, which has gone from $ 100 million to $ 31 million, remains unsold.)

Pagel admits that buying a rock and roll property is a combination of unusual challenges: "With a guitar, you can move it. A house is just stuck there. This is not a portable collectible item. But neither he nor Bacon, from Cobain House, intend to move in. They are restoring their respective purchases to the extent of their original conditions. The rural world has already entered this territory – one can visit the childhood homes of Loretta Lynn or Johnny Cash, for example – and Paul McCartney's and John Lennon's children's homes in Liverpool are tourist attractions. But plans for the Dylan and Cobain residences could mark the beginning of a similar initiative in the United States aimed at transforming classic rock shows into tourist attractions.

If one relies on the dedication of Dylan, few personalities probably Pagel, who attended about 500 Bob shows, has an extensive collection of memorabilia (including high school yearbooks signed) and manages the respected Bob Links site, one of the main sources of Dylan. setlists. The idea of ​​owning a home from her hero came to mind when Duluth's home was put up for sale on eBay. "I really wanted Hibbing House," he says. "It seems like more people associate Bob with this house. But it was not available, and that [Duluth] One of them was, so I thought I would buy some. That's exactly what Pagel did for $ 82,000 in cash and he's now giving informal tours of the house.

Pagel has spent the last 18 years maintaining Duluth's house, renting the first floor and sometimes collapsing on the floor where the young Bob was sleeping. He installed a new roof and porch, plastered walls and rehabilitated the floors. for more details, he looked for the exact type of gas stoves and refrigerators that would have been found in homes of the forties and fifties.

This summer, Pagel, who retired as a pharmacist last year, finally had the chance to interfere in the Hibbing residence when the couple who owned it for several decades decided it was time to move on to something else. Pagel refused to check the price, but the two-story, three-bedroom house was listed in Zillow for $ 320,000. He has already found a bedroom set similar to that of Dylan, and the curtains and the original curtain of this room remain incredibly intact. He is currently looking for the owner who bought all the furniture in this 80s house, including Dylan's dining room table and bedroom furniture. "I could not find him," he says, "but he may read this."

The Cobain home on E. First Street had been on the market for at least three years, sitting unsold and at a price of up to $ 500,000, when Bacon and his wife learned that she was available. According to Bacon, this comfortable bungalow built in 1923 still includes remnants of Cobain's early years, such as orange carpets. "My goal is to preserve and restore it for my generation and my children," says Bacon, who attended the same high school as Scott Weiland and wants to recreate the "original splendor of the sixties and early seventies. Years that Cobain lived there.

Through the zoning laws of this residential neighborhood, the house could never turn into a full-fledged museum, but Bacon had preliminary discussions with state officials in order to grant him the status of a historic monument. "This is a tribute project that we would like to share with our fans, through truthful stories and historically accurate preservation," said Bacon. Be that as it may, Bacon sees the restoration project as a way to revive the memories of a younger and happier Cobain, rather than the Nirvana singer pushed to suicide. "He could be a happy child," says Bacon. "He was talented and we want to emphasize the positive aspects. His sense of humor grew, his passion for art, playing drums and piano, playing guitar, writing songs and training with his friends in the garage is widespread and undeniable in the world. story of the house.

Pagel realizes how strange this developing trend is, but, like Bacon, he's looking at history and not the amazement of anyone wondering why people would buy these things. "People like to come back and see where someone comes from, and that will be my contribution," he says. "I think I'm doing something that should be done, even though people think it's a little crazy."