Yahoo Finance Moby: ‘I spent a tonne of money on a renovation – and made my house a lot less valuable’
Moby, 58, is an American musician who found fame in the 1990s, and has sold over 20 million records. Born Richard Melville Hall, his breakthrough hit ‘Go’ reached Number 10 in the UK Singles Chart in 1991, and he has since had 18 singles and 12 albums in the UK Top 40.
His two UK Number 1 albums were ‘Play’ in 1999 – selling over 12 million copies and spending more than two years (108 weeks) in the UK Album Chart – and ‘18’ in 2002, which was Number 1 in 12 countries. Today, he lives in Los Angeles.
What attracted you to your home?
I live right by Griffith Park in Los Angeles. It’s completely quiet and the only sound you might occasionally hear is a coyote.
When I first moved to Los Angeles in 2010 I moved into this Hollywood castle [Wolf’s Lair, which he bought for $3.9m]. It was so big and over the top, a massive castle on a lot of land overlooking everything. You could see the Hollywood sign, the ocean, Griffith Park Observatory, all of Los Angeles. It was truly spectacular. I would have giant parties and fundraisers.
But at some point I realised I was kind of restless there because, grand and beautiful as it was, 99pc of my time was spent in small spaces: the kitchen, my bedroom or watching TV in the living room.
I was confronted with the unavoidable fact that I was one person living in a 12-bedroom property, and the absurdity of that. Clearly, I’ve got a lot of things to overcompensate for, but why did I feel the need for a Gatsby-esque/Citizen Kane overcompensation? So, in 2014 I sold it [for $12.4m] and got this much simpler, smaller, less ostentatious home, and I’m so much happier.
Do you have a favourite room?
Yes, the library, which is also where I watch TV. It’s a fascinating room, because it’s sort of hidden in the middle of the house. It only has one little bitty window looking out on to a bunch of plants, and it’s just the cosiest.
When the doors are shut you feel like you’re in the literary equivalent of a panic room.
How does your house compare to your childhood home?
It’s exactly the opposite in many ways. I grew up very poor. The first couple of years of my life were spent in a basement in Harlem, New York.
After my dad died, my mom and I moved to a very strange third floor rooming-house apartment. We had to walk up the fire escape stairs to get our bit. At one point we lived in a larger house, but shared it with four hippies.
So my childhood was very chaotic, dark and scary and filled with unpredictable adults. We could barely afford to buy food, and my mom would have to borrow money constantly in order to pay the rent.
How many properties have you lived in?
About 12. I’ve spent tons of time overseas touring, but for legal or practical reasons I’ve never actually lived outside the United States.
In the late 1980s I lived in a warehouse that had no running water, no bathroom, no heat, but it had free electricity; and in the 1990s I spent years living in a warehouse that did have heat. So that was like a step up.
What was the first property you bought?
The first place I bought was in 1994, it was a vacation house in Garrison, New York. It’s an hour away from New York City – an adorable little cabin. It didn’t have heat so you couldn’t really go there half the year, but it shared a lake with its neighbours.
The problem was I bought it right when I started drinking and doing drugs again. It was very quiet, bucolic, pretty and calm, but my friends and I would go up there and drink and do drugs. I’m surprised my neighbours didn’t kill me because I was the terrible neighbour – playing house music until 2am, out of my head while they were all trying to sleep. I still feel guilty about what a bad neighbour I was...
Do you garden?
I discovered how much I love landscaping. What’s funny – at least I think it’s funny – is that during the pandemic I also learned how much I loved cleaning my house. So at this point I’m like my own landscaper and housekeeper; the more menial the job the more likely I’m the one doing it.
When you plant a pine tree or a bay laurel you’re planting life. I’m sitting here right now looking out my window at countless things that have been planted over the last 10 years, some of which are 50ft tall.
It was a hippie epiphany I had at my other house [Wolf’s Lair] where we’d just planted a pine tree that was about 8ft tall and cost $200.
I was thinking there’s a good chance this pine tree will be here for 100 years. It’ll cool the air, turn CO² into oxygen, provide a home for a trillion creatures, and put nutrients in the soil. At the same time, I was looking at an advertisement in a magazine for a Rolex watch, which cost $10,000. I thought what’s wrong with our culture that we value a dead metal watch more than we do a tree?
There’s also a sort of ontological spiritual component in recognising the role of death in nature and life. The trees are dropping all this matter on the ground, but without it the soil would die. My planting is forest-oriented. Even though I live in southern California I’ve recreated a forest of the Pacific Northwest in my garden.
When I lived in the crazy castle I had huge views of 50 miles in every direction. But in a weird way it was overwhelming because you’re looking at a city. Now, I’m tucked in a little dell and the only thing I can see from every window are trees – the opposite of a Hollywood view – and I find it so comforting. When you live in a city but you can’t see it, for me that’s the dream.
Have you done alterations?
Nothing major. Because of climate change Los Angeles now has mosquitoes, so I had to put screens over the windows and put in a screened porch. I also put in solar panels and a battery system, so I’m off the grid – oh, and I turned the garage into a second recording studio.
I once had a dream of being in Los Angeles with a swimming pool. It seemed like paradise. But once I had that I never used it.
Seven years ago I was sitting by [the pool] feeling like an idiot with this big box of chlorinated water sitting in my backyard. No one can drink it; when bees fly into it they die. I thought: “Why am I spending time and money sustaining it when it could be something else?”.
I told a contractor I wanted to remove my swimming pool and he said, “Sure! Replace it with another one?”, I said, “No, replace it with trees.”
Its complete removal made my business manager say, “Fantastic. You’ve just spent a ton of money to make your house less valuable.” But now that space is filled with trees, with birds, squirrels, pollinating insects, humming-birds and butterflies, and it feels like some of the best money I’ve ever spent.
Have you had good and bad experiences with contractors?
Oh yes. I’ve been sued by contractors when they didn’t show up. I’ve had drug-addicted contractors, racist contractors. A lot of them are great, but boy when they’re bad it really goes wrong.
I had one who was horrified at my politics and told me that Trump was the greatest thing that had ever happened to America. I really just wanted him to fix my door.
Have you bought anything for your home that ended up a nightmare?
The only thing that has been complicated was I indulged and bought a big beautiful piano. Then I learned it was so heavy it was bending the floor, so we had to put in supports underneath.
It’s not a very nice piano – sorry, I don’t want the piano to get offended – but I play it constantly. It’s appeared on lots of my records, but it’s definitely not something a classically trained pianist playing Rachmaninoff would want to record with. But I love the way it sounds.
Have any of your houses been haunted?
I’m not sure because I don’t fully know if ghosts exist. I’ve definitely lived in some spooky places, but don’t know if that’s just me being a big cissy.
Where do you relax at home?
Basically, everywhere; from doing yoga outside to sitting on the screened-in porch, reading The New Yorker. I find this house to be very calming, just being here is relaxing to me. It’s nice when you’re sort of excited to wake up in the morning because there are so many interesting things to do in the day.
What’s your favourite possession?
My best friend is an 11-pound dog named Bagel, so my favourite possessions are the photographs I have of Bagel.
Moby will release his new album ‘Always Centred At Night’ on June 14; he will perform at The O2, London on September 19.
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