Jimi Hendrix's flat to become museum after £1.2m grant

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25553088

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A central London office where Jimi Hendrix lived for a year is to become a permanent museum dedicated to the 1960s music legend.

The top floor flat of 23 Brook Street, Mayfair, was his home from 1968 to 1969 and where he felt most at ease, according to his then girlfriend Kathy Etchingham.

Composer Handel had lived in the house next door two centuries before.

A £1.2m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund will pay for the renovation.

The flat is currently used as an office for the Handel House Trust and can only be visited by the public during the annual open house weekend when a limited number of tickets are available.

'Make noise'

Baroque composer George Frideric Handel lived at 25 Brook Street, then a separate house from number 23, for 36 years until his death in 1759.

The Heritage Lottery Fund said it was where he composed many of his most-loved works, including Messiah and Music for the Royal Fireworks.

A spokeswoman from the Handel House Trust said they wanted to recreate Hendrix's room, which he rented for £30 a week, as it was when he lived there.

She said: "The flat appealed to Hendrix because the below flats were occupied by businesses so he could make as much noise as he liked in the evening when all the workers went home."

She told BBC News it would also contain an exhibition in a separate room, and it is expected to open in 2015.

Born in the US, Hendrix spent his final years mainly in London.

He died of an apparent overdose at what was then the Samarkand Hotel in Lansdowne Crescent, Notting Hill, on 18 September 1970.