Jeff Buckley’s former home, where the late guitar star had been working on new music right up until he died, is being transformed into a tribute Airbnb.
The property in Memphis, Tennessee, will be remodeled and open for vacancies by November. It will see the guitarist's tiny home, which he lived in for nearly a year before he died in 1997, be opened up to the Buckley fanbase.
Goode Development bought the property at 93 North Rembert Street for $143,800 in March this year after it had been uninhabited for around a year.
The Telecaster-loving guitarist had moved into the property following the success of his only album, Grace and was working on its follow-up while in the house. It has since become a shrine for fans, hence the investment. Developer Eric Goode and real estate agent David Lorrison are behind the project.
“Nobody in Memphis was paying attention to the house,” Lorrison said [via Rolling Stone]. “But when you look online, you see people are coming here from all over. They drive for miles to make videos of the house and trace Jeff’s steps in Memphis.”
While its conversion into an Airbnb over, say a museum, may raise eyebrows, Lorrison adds that it will not become “a hipster’s Graceland”.
They plan to decorate the property as it was when Buckley called it home, although some creative license will be needed. Memphis music writer Andria Lisle told the local news outlet Commercial Appeal that the property had little furniture at the time when Buckley lived there.
“The house was really sparse,” she remembers. “It was a tiny, wonky, Midtown house, typical for that neighborhood. He borrowed a gorgeous Victorian couch from David [Shouse of the Grifters] and [Shouse’s wife] Tammy, but other than that he kind of just had a phone, an answering machine, and a mattress. He always had a pile of books and CDs. He moved from room to room, following the sunlight.”
In 2022 a Beatles fan put George Harrison's childhood home up on Airbnb, with the property's owner wanting to pay respect to his favorite Beatle. Muse's Matt Bellamy, meanwhile, bought Buckley's Grace Telecaster with the intention of keeping historic guitar in action.
