A remote Pennsylvania country house and horse farm that the late Monkees lead singer and teen heartthrob Davy Jones called home for nearly 30 years is on the market.
The six-bedroom, 3,388-square-foot house, which sits on 6 hectares, is in Beavertown, a community of 945 people in central Pennsylvania about 85km north of Harrisburg. Jones went there in 1985 to work with a book collaborator and fell in love with the surrounding horse country.
The British-born Jones died in March 2012 while attending to racehorses he kept near his winter home in Florida.
Real estate agent Melissa Laniewski said on Tuesday the list price for the home known as Spruce Lawn is $389,000 (Dh1.4 million). An old church in Beavertown that Jones bought, intending to convert it into a pop culture museum and performance space, is priced at $60,000.
While the exterior of the 1920 house has some “deferred maintenance” issues, the realtor said, the interior is in solid shape, with French doors and leaded glass.
Only pre-qualified buyers may see house, not the merely curious. Laniewski said one fan who called and berated her for the limited number of interior photos of the house posted on Zillow.com, a restriction imposed by Jones’ daughters.
Jones came to America from England in 1963 to play the role of Artful Dodger in Oliver!, a Broadway musical. In 1966, he and three other young men were recruited for the Monkees, a band created for a TV series that ran until 1968.
He sang lead on many of the band’s numerous hits, including Daydream Believer and I Wanna Be Free. Jones, who at 5 feet, 3 inches (1.6-metre) tall rode as a jockey in his teen years, sheltered rescue horses on his farm and had 15 of them when he died. The proceeds from the real estate sales will go to a foundation set up to care for the horses.
