We'll Soon Get to See Where David Bowie Grew Up

David Bowie's bedroom is set to soon be London's newest tourist attraction. The house where the musician grew from suburban schoolboy to rock 'n' roll starman has been bought by a charity that plans to open it to the public, per the AP. The Heritage of London Trust said Thursday that the 19th-century railway worker's cottage in the south London suburb of Bromley will be restored to its 1960s decor and opened to the public next year. Visitors will be able to visit the 9-by-10-foot bedroom "where a spark became a flame," the charity said. Bowie, born David Jones, lived in the house with his parents from 1955, when he was 8, until 1967, when he was a 20-year-old working musician hungry for fame.

Geoffrey Marsh, co-curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum's hit 2013 exhibition "David Bowie Is," said the house is where "Bowie evolved from an ordinary suburban schoolboy to the beginnings of an extraordinary international stardom." Marsh added, "As [Bowie] said, 'I spent so much time in my bedroom, it really was my entire world. I had books up there, my music up there, my record player.'" From Bromley, Bowie went on a creative journey that took him to Philadelphia, Berlin, and New York, through eye-popping style changes and musical genres from folk-rock to glam, soul, electronica, and new wave. His songbook includes classics such as "Space Oddity," "Changes," "Life on Mars," "Starman," "Young Americans," and "Heroes."

The charity scrambled to buy the house when it went on the market last year. It hasn't said how much it paid, though other houses on the street have recently sold for upward of about $670,000—modest by London standards. The house project, backed by Bowie's estate, has received a $670,000 charity grant and is seeking to raise another $1.6 million in donations. The trust aims to open the house in late 2027 for public visits and creative workshops for children. Heritage of London Trust chief Nicola Stacey said the house will offer visitors insight into Bowie's creative origins, and into domestic life in the 1950s and 1960s, a period of huge social change. "I'm keen that it doesn't feel static, it doesn't feel sterile, there's a sense of the family living there," she said. "And a sense of that you've really walked into David Bowie's life in the 1960s."