Teen living in Kubrick’s house inspired into film
3 days agoShareSave
Justin Dealey
BBC News, Hertfordshire
Reporting fromElstree
Tony Fisher
BBC News, Hertfordshire
A teenager who lives in Stanley Kubrick’s former home says she has been inspired to become a film director.
Molly, 17, said that living in Abbots Mead in Barnet Lane, Elstree, Hertfordshire, had “definitely sparked a bigger interest in the film industry”.
The house, which is up for sale, is where the American director managed productions for films such as The Shining, Barry Lyndon, A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Molly said she “did not know how famous he was until I went to film school”.
“I don’t think I appreciated the history of this house enough until I started looking into things like media and I heard a lot about Stanley Kubrick,” she said.
Molly said visitors to the home either “love or hate the property”.
She used to choreograph plays at school and in 10 years’ time she said she would love to be an artistic director and follow in the footsteps of the Kubrick.
Her film teacher at college said she would “love to come round and see it” when she revealed whose former home she lived in.
Molly’s mother Victoria said she had lived in the house for more than 40 years and when they first moved into the property “it was very creepy”.
She said there was a storm and the “wind whistled through the house” and floorboards creeped, and it felt like being in The Shining.
Over time though, she said it became “a lovely family home”.
She said fans of Kubrick, “mainly Americans”, have come to the house every few months and “it amazes me – the fans he still has”.
These visitors are allowed to walk around the outside and see the former garage where Kubrick edited films, Victoria said.
Local Savills director Steven Spencer said a lot of Kubrick’s “great work was done here and that is what makes this a piece of cinematic history”.
He said “we believe people have come from around the world just to see the shelves [in the workshop]” which featured in A Clockwork Orange.
The sitting room was used as “his cinema room where he watched his films probably for many hours until he was happy” he added.
The nine-bedroom property, which has a blue plaque dedicated to Kubrick outside, is listed for sale with Savills for a guide price of £6,950,000.
He lived at the house between 1965 and 1979, before moving to Childwickbury Estate, near St Albans, where he stayed until his death in 1999.
3:40Living in Stanley Kubrick’s old house
Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
