Jimi Hendrix's childhood home demolished

With its peeling paint and boarded-up windows, Seattle authorities declared the shack on 4th Street, Renton, an "eyesore" that had to be removed. But as the demolition crews rolled in earlier this week, rock'n'roll fans mourned the loss of what wasn't simply a stack of crumbling wood, but the childhood home of Jimi Hendrix.

"This is where he first discovered music," says Charles R Cross, author of the Hendrix biography Room Full of Mirrors. Speaking to the Seattle Times, Cross said: "Too bad no city body stepped up to the plate to save the place Jimi lived in. Let's be blunt: he's the most famous guy to ever be born in the city of Seattle."

Cross is not the only one who is unhappy with the demolition job. Despite the appearance of the shack, Leon Hendrix, younger brother of Jimi, has fond memories of growing up there. He described how his brother was obsessed with music during their childhood, often imitating the likes of Chuck Berry while listening to his father's radio. He says simply: "I loved that house."

The building was purchased in 2001 by developer Peter Sikov. After paying substantially more than Hendrix's father, who secured the house with a $10 deposit in 1950, Sikov decided to move it to Hi-Land Mobile Manor, Renton, so it could be located across from the cemetery where Hendrix is buried. "It seemed a worthwhile endeavour," says Sikov, who hoped to develop the shack into a memorial for the thousands of fans who flock to Greenwood Memorial Park Cemetery.

But negotiations between Sikov and the authorities in Renton, as detailed in the Seattle Times, point to a perceived failure by Sikov to meet certain aesthetic requirements with both the shack and the mobile-home park, which he purchased for nearly $2m to relocate Hendrix's former home. After four years, authorities moved to tear it down.

Sikov, however, is looking on the bright side. He describes it as a "deconstruction job" that will allow whatever is left of the house to be recycled and auctioned for charity. "Can you imagine a guitar made out of wood from Jimi's house?" he asks. "Who wouldn't want that?"

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