The Beatles Behind the Scenes: 15 Photos of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr at Home
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John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr of the Beatles started out in Liverpool, England, but it wasn’t long before the band took the entire world by storm. As the group ascended to superstardom, the famed foursome expanded their horizons and put down roots around the UK and beyond.
The group’s 1964 song “I’ll Follow the Sun” is “a ‘Leaving of Liverpool’ song,” McCartney explained in his 2021 book The Lyrics. “I’m leaving this rainy northern town for someplace where more is happening.” The Beatles’ rise to fame is explored in the new documentary Beatles ’64 (streaming now on Disney+), featuring never-before-seen footage of the group and its legions of fans during the frenzy of Beatlemania. Of course, it wasn’t all massive crowds and wild concerts; the four led quieter lives in their time at home, where they wrote some of their greatest hits. To provide a peek behind the curtain into their private worlds, we rounded up some domestic snapshots of the iconic musicians below.
Photo: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images1/15Harrison’s childhood home
Harrison spent the first six years of his life at 12 Arnold Grove in Wavertree, Liverpool, before the family moved into a council house (a form of British public housing) at 25 Upton Green in Speke. The three-bedroom home, as seen in this 1955 photograph of Harrison at age 12, served as a frequent rehearsal spot for the band, who then called themselves the Quarrymen. Because the dwelling was much larger than the terraced house he spent his early days in, the young Harrison “ran around and round it all that first day” as his family settled in, according to biographer Hunter Davies.
Photo: Getty Images/Staff2/15Beginnings of the band
Now a National Trust property, the post-war terraced home located at 20 Forthlin Road in Liverpool is where McCartney grew up. The residence is commonly referred to as the birthplace of the Beatles. McCartney, Lennon, and Harrison are pictured here outside the house in 1960. (Starr joined the group two years later.) According to the National Trust, the front porch served as a rehearsal space. If McCartney’s father wasn’t home, the trio of musicians would convene in the parlor, which McCartney’s mother Mary had decorated in Sanderson designer wallpaper.
Photo: Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images3/15Starr’s childhood home
Starr’s modest two-up two-down childhood home was located at 10 Admiral Grove in Toxteth, Liverpool. The musician, pictured here the 1960s behind a cash register at what appeared to be an at-home bar, marked some major milestones in the house—including his 21st birthday, which had quite an enormous guest list considering the pad’s tight square footage. “This house is probably 20 foot square, and when I was 21, we had 80 people in here,” Starr once said in an interview as he toured the neighborhood. “We had a great birthday.”
Photo: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images4/15Lennon’s private sanctuary at Kenwood
From 1964 to 1968, Lennon lived with first wife Cynthia Powell in a Tudor revival-style residence known as Kenwood. The estate, located in the Surrey Hills, was designed by architect T. A. Allen. “In My Life” is among the Beatles classics Lennon penned during his time at the manor. In a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone, he explained, “I wrote that in Kenwood. I used to write upstairs where I had about 10 Brunell [sic] tape recorders all linked up.”
Photo: Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images5/15Harrison’s Kinfauns home
In this 1964 photo, Harrison stands outside Kinfauns, a 1950s bungalow in the English county of Surrey. The “Run of the Mill” singer called the place home from 1964 to 1970. Many demo recordings for the band’s 1968 self-titled double album (also known as the White Album) were made here. According to Joshua M. Greene’s Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual And Musical Journey Of George Harrison, the musician and his first wife Pattie Boyd faced some privacy issues there. “George and Pattie returned home one night to find that two girls had broken in and were hiding under their bed and giggling,” Greene wrote.
Photo: Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images6/15Lennon’s Kenwood work
Lennon was reportedly not a huge fan of Kenwood, though he spent thousands on renovations, including commissioning tiler Joseph Ritrovato to create a psychedelic eye mosaic that was installed in the deep end wall of his swimming pool. He’s seen smiling in this 1960 backyard snap with his son Julian, but Lennon wrote lyrics alluding to tougher times while residing there. When asked about “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” Lennon told Rolling Stone he penned the song at Kenwood, explaining, “It’s one of those that you sort of sing a bit sadly to yourself, ‘Here I stand, head in hand…’”
Photo: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images7/15Starr’s tranquil backyard
Shortly after Starr married hairdresser Maureen Cox in February 1965, the two moved into Sunny Heights, a large mock Tudor house in Weybridge, Surrey. The couple is pictured in their yard in August 1967 with their eldest, Zak, shortly before Cox gave birth to their second son, Jason. “When I was very young, there was music all around me in my parents’ house,” Zak told Modern Drummer in 2006.
Photo: Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images8/15McCartney’s St. John’s Wood home
At the peak of Beatlemania, McCartney bought a home in St. John’s Wood, London, for a reported sum of £40,000 (equivalent to just over $50,000 today), but he admitted in a 1966 interview with NME that he didn’t know too much about real estate. “Do I know anything about property? Not really,” admitted McCartney, pictured here outside the home in 1967 alongside his dog Martha. “Well, I suppose I do, come to think of it. I’m being vague. But don’t think I’m a big property tycoon. I only buy places I like.”
Photo: Keystone/Getty Images9/15An affinity for traditional style
As for how McCartney furnished his homes in the ’60s (at the time he owned three: the aforementioned London home, one in Liverpool and a farm in Scotland), the songwriter admitted that he didn’t care for anything too fancy. “As far as the St. John’s Wood house goes, I’ve furnished it in traditional style because I don’t go for this modern stuff that always looks as if it needs something doing to it,” McCartney, pictured here at home in 1967 alongside his father, James McCartney, told NME. “I like it to be comfortable. Those mod leather chairs…ugh. They’re too cold.”
Photo: Keystone Features/Getty Images10/15Florals and family time
Flowers seemed to be an important motif in Lennon’s life. In his 1973 song “Mind Games,” he sang, “Love is the flower. You gotta let it, you gotta let it grow.” He’s pictured here in 1968 at his Weybridge home with son Julian in a bedroom covered in floral patterns.
Photo: Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images11/15Close commute
McCartney’s St. John’s Wood home in London is just a stone’s throw away from the famed Abbey Road Studios, where the group convened—specifically, in Studio Two—to record many of their hit tunes in the 1960s. The group’s 1969 album Abbey Road is named for the legendary studio space.
Photo: Michael Putland/Getty Images12/15Minimalist lounging with Lennon
In 1969, Lennon added a mansion located in Tittenhurst Park in Ascot, Berkshire to his holdings. The musician bought the 72-acre estate on London Road for £145,000 (equivalent to nearly $183,000 today). He’s seen here at the abode in 1971 hanging out with his friends and his wife, Yoko Ono, whom he married in 1969.
Photo: Olley Alan/Mirrorpix/Getty Images13/15Tittenhurst Park estate trades hands
Lennon eventually sold Tittenhurst Park to Starr in September 1973. The drummer renamed the home’s recording space Startling Studios. Starr is pictured here outside the mansion with his second wife, Barbara Bach, and their dogs one year after the couple married in 1980.
Photo: Tony Korody/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images14/15Ringo rocks out at home
Like all of the Beatles, Starr, pictured here in 1981 behind a drum set at his home, released solo projects after the group disbanded in 1970. He’s reported to have said, though, that he never formally trained as a musician. “I never studied anything, really,” Starr explained. “I didn’t study the drums. I joined bands and made all the mistakes onstage.”
Photo: Tim Ockenden/PA Images via Getty Images15/15McCartney’s Sussex home
In 1973, McCartney purchased a 160-acre property dubbed Blossom Wood Farm near Rye in East Sussex. He’s seen talking to press outside the estate here in 2001, shortly after the death of band member Harrison. In 2020, McCartney told NPR’s All Things Considered that “George was very into horticulture, a really good gardener. So he gave me a tree as a present: It’s a big fir tree, and it’s by my gate. As I was leaving my house this morning, I get out of the car, close the gate and look up at the tree and say, ‘Hi, George.’ There he is, growing strongly.”
