Many years ago I saw George Harrison and his video Cracker Box Palace. I always loved the song and the video. I wondered about Friar Park and how George got it, and all about the place it self. We will find out now.l
When i moved to Henley on Thames, I took a drive to get to know the area. I drove through the town and did a U-turn in front of some large gates. “Who lives in a house like this?” I thought. I later found out it was a Beatle. That explained it. I arrived long after George had passed. George was an incredible person. He was in the most successful band of all time. He made 15 movies that were great and he spent decades restoring Friar Park to its former glory. That’s quite good for one lifetime. I live close by and I enjoyed this video. Thank you.
Friar Park is a truly magnificent period property with extensive grounds. It must have cost George an absolute fortune to restore, & with old Victorian gothic piles like that there is continual ongoing maintenance & upkeep!
Nice; Like The Dakota Apartments in NYC, Friar Park continues to be an intriguing architectural marvel with a colorful, compelling history of occupancy to match!..
Thank you, some nice photos and calm, pleasant narration. That place looks wonderful. The description of how their days were sounds like my kind of scene and way of living. Now I just need to find a place like that, even if on a slightly smaller scale😉
A friend/bandmate of mine-the great DJ Fontana told me that George invited him and Scotty Moore over to the “monster house” DJ called it as he waved his hands. They had a blast. DJ said that George was showing him and Scotty his guitar room & they were getting hungry. So after the last guitar George said “I have another room of guitars if you’d like to see them?” DJ said that he and Scotty yelled “No NO NO!” & they all laughed for quite a while after that. lol
I had a couple of visits. One night George put me to bed in some ridiculous bedroom with a massive four poster bed that had really thick velvet drapes. He said, “Ive got to go into London early in the morning so I probably won’t see ya but don’t steal any of my Tiffany lamps!”…my reply, “what Tiffany lamps?”
Nice job, I consider myself to know a great deal about The Beatles collectively and individually, but I heard some things in this video that I did not know.
Thanks for vid. It is definitely a curious and interesting Place. It would be cool to tour the place as There seems to be only a few Photos of the home
I remember seeing an interview with Dhani Harrison where he described how involved George was with the garden. He said that once he went to bed and when he came outside the next morning his Dad had moved several boulders and a fairly large tree to completely different locations (switching them around with one another) with a backhoe and other equipment. He said this was a pretty commonplace sort of occurrence. Just imagining George operating a backhoe or bulldozer is amusing to me!
@thebeatlesforever yes absolutely brilliant thankyou for putting g this video up. I'm from Liverpool so me Mum and Dad played the Beatles all the time when I was a kid. I'm 53 now.
Great job on this video, thank you. You helped me to forget about "Beatle-George " for a while and focus on the successful musician, a man and his wife who just wanted to be at peace working on his solitude in his own home. That focus was a first for me. Thank you again.
Ye have wonderful vids and stories as well as insight. I have enjoyed every second of every story ye hath told here. So real you are and the best storyteller on youtube these days. I salute ye!
This was a fascinating video! It really got into the history of this great property and how George related to it. It looks like a fairy land and fits in with the late sixties ethos. You did a quality job with the research and pictures that is great and I gave thumbs up and subscribed.
I'm sad about the emphasis on money here. We have a temporate climate in Britain, especially the South East. The houses were beautifully built, but things like damp courses , air bricks and chimneys etc were designed to keep our houses in good condition. Just opening the big sash windows and airing the house out keeps it healthy. I grew up in a large house myself, I live in a Georgian house now. All you need is to keep an eye open and do maintenance. We know what to look out for. We don't have the American property tax. You can spend more on the gardens to be honest. Running costs like heating can be offset burning the wood from your own estate. Esher is pronounced EEsher by the way. It's great fun tracking down bits and pieces for old houses. We have reclamation yards and can find old floorboards and tiles quite easily. Look at the age of our buildings. It's not all about money.
Seems so odd that this huge mansion would continue to be the home of one woman (as far as I know), George's widow Olivia. At least when George was alive there would have been more activity, with musicians and friends coming and going. I wonder if this is the most "over the top" of all rock star mansions, which is ironic considering how generally understated George was.
The perimeter of the property is mostly electric fence and concertina wire. Looks like what would be around an ammo dump. ha ha. The town is encroaching upon it. I suppose in 25 years it will be divided up and apartment complexes built after the bulldozers get done.
It’s ironic of course, for all the non-materialistic preaching, the quiet Beatle ends up living in a palatial estate that that would put most Royal palaces to shame! But I’m sure his loving care probably saved it from the wrecking ball. If I owned that estate, I too would rarely venture out the front gate, and instead have all my friends over. Such a shame that nut-job managed to attack him and his wife, nevertheless. That probably took 20 years off his life, complicating his cancer battle. And guess what? In crazy, socialist leaning Britain, the guy who tried to murder this wonderful, peaceful couple is already free again! Who owns the estate now?
Sorry. I am going to judge. Nobody needs to live in excess like that, especially when they KNOW of starvation and need in the world. Bottom line is: it is very hard to walk the walk of the talk one talks. But, true respect from me comes when I see it in this world.
Sir Frank Crisp's Friar Park was built from scratch on two areas of land in Henley-On-Thames, Friars Field and Friar Park, neither of which had any religious connection. Friar, was very likely the name of the owner before Sir Frank. A lot of the stone at Friar Park is manmade from Pulhamite en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulhamite, used for the caves and scale model of the Matterhorn.
