Rock and Roll Real Estate: Legendary Abbey Road Studios Up for Sale by EMI

 
Well here’s a unique commercial real-estate offering from the London market—record-label giant EMI is putting Abbey Road Studios, the legendary studios where much of the Beatles catalog and hundreds of thousands of other songs were first committed to tape. Located in the posh St John’s Wood, Abbey Road has become as famous for its exterior, featured on the Fab Four’s “Abbey Road” LP cover as it is for the many recordings supervised by master producer George Martin and those who came after.

 
First built as a townhouse in 1831, the Gramophone Company first opened a recording studio in the spot exactly 100 years later, and music has been pouring out of the Westminster, London building ever since. Renamed after the Beatles album in 1970, the studio has played host to decades of classical recordings and rock bands—The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, Oasis, Pink Floyd, Kanye West, and U2 make up just a small portion of the artists who have used the facilities. If you do happen to have a few million on hand to buy the still-active studios, note that you’ll not only be expected to continue renting out the state-of-the-art sound lab (it’s often been called the best in the world) to acts looking to make albums, but you’ll have command of a spot that’s been used for the popular “Live From Abbey Road” television series, the famous “crossing” photo-op spot, and you’re very own on-premises restaurant. Provided you can deal with the regular arrival of long-haired rock musicians and their hangers on, it could be the purchase of a lifetime.
 
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To purchase or visit Abbey Road Studios and “The Crossing” check out
3 Abbey Road
St John’s Wood, London, England
+44 20-7266-7000
www.abbeyroad.com
 
“Abbey Road Studios Put Up for Sale by EMI” (NME)
 
Top: George Martin and the Beatles in an uncredited photo from the 1960s
Bottom: The Red Hot Chili Peppers on “Live at Abbey Road”, courtesy of The Sundance Channel.