Story: Kurt Cobain Slept Here

Seattle’s reputation for strong coffee and constant rain generally mutes some of its more subtle attributes. Many perhaps do not appreciate Seattle’s connection to the world of music, from nurturing early 20th century jazz, to having been the birthplace of Jimi Hendrix and on to catalyzing more contemporary acts like Pearl Jam and Death Cab for Cutie. It was, of course, the epicenter of the grunge movement of the mid 1990’s and the birthplace of the genre-defining band Nirvana. This latter fact is possibly one of the city’s most famous ties to music tradition and is also among the most relevant for visitors today. One of Seattle’s unlikeliest places of interest is the former home of Kurt Cobain and the site of his death. It is a somewhat forgotten place fourteen years on but still a destination for many devoted fans of the rock band Nirvana who still aim to understand the artistic brilliance and tragic drug-addled death of an awkward outsider who became rock god.

There is a morbid curiosity in seeking out Kurt Cobain's former house in the Denny-Blaine neighborhood of Seattle. In some ways it conjures the same feelings of melancholy and loss as it does to visit The Dakota apartment building in New York City where John Lennon was killed, or the grave of Jim Morrison at Pere Lachaise in Paris. The house stands at 171 Lake Washington Boulevard East. Apparently, Kurt and his wife Courtney Love purchased the house for $1.130 million in January of 1994. The house lies just up the hill from the Western shore of scenic Lake Washington and is perched almost directly across the water from the $97 million house owned by Bill and Melinda Gates.

The former Cobain-Love house is a luxurious mansion very far from the Nirvana frontman’s humble beginnings in the small logging town of Aberdeen, WA. Denny-Blaine is among the toniest of Seattle's neighborhoods. Though Cobain's neighbors included Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and R.E.M.'s Peter Buck, most of the other people in that locale are members of Seattle society's rich old guard. The house was built in 1902 by Elbert Blaine (for whom the neighborhood was named) and the acre plot was lushly landscaped with rhododendrons, Japanese maples, dogwoods and magnolia trees. The house itself is a 7,800 square foot, New England shingle style three story structure with five fireplaces, five bedrooms, a remodeled kitchen and breathtaking lake views from virtually every window.

To the rear of the house was a separate structure: the infamous greenhouse and garage in which Kurt Cobain killed himself. An electrician found Cobain's body sprawled out on the greenhouse floor on the morning of Saturday, April 8, 1994. The King County Medical Examiner's office speculated that he had been dead for at least a few days. Beside him were a can of root beer, a suicide note, and the box of gear he used to cook that one last massive hit of heroin before he put a rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He was 27 years old.

Much to the dismay of the curious fans who seek it out today, the garage and greenhouse were razed in 1996, a year before Courtney Love sold the house. She was quoted as saying that the constant stream of distraught fans was too much and that the building had become "bigger than the Space Needle."

Things have quieted down there quite a bit now. At it was quiet on the late spring weekday that I visited the house, which Love sold to new owners in 1997 when she and daughter Frances Bean moved to Beverly Hills, CA. There is nothing remarkable about the house or the neighborhood, except for two speed bumps that were no doubt placed in the road to control the speed of traffic around the blind curve on which the house sits. The new owners have fenced and landscaped the property, perhaps to horde what little privacy they have in the house of someone so famous. There is a security gate with an electronic call box, much more common in the Hollywood Hills than in Seattle's Denny-Blaine neighborhood, but totally understandable under the circumstances. Security cameras are mounted at various points on the exterior of the house. Who knows how many fans have attempted or still try to trespass on the grounds to get close to someone who has been gone more than a dozen years now.

A small plot of public land, Seattle’s Viretta Park, borders the former Cobain property. In a way it is strange that Kurt and Courtney chose the house that they did as the park affords views of the house from the side and also from a hillside above, seriously compromising their privacy. This park is the site where Nirvana fans gathered in droves after Kurt's death.

There are no official memorials, markers or signs in the quiet little park today. But two benches are covered with the graffiti of fans that have visited the site in the years since his death. The comments alternately vilify and deify Kurt Cobain, an equal measure of anger and love. The largest of the inscriptions proclaim the obvious about the place: "Kurt's Park." An immense cedar tree towers over the northern-most part of the park, the closest tree to the former site of the greenhouse. On a recent visit I noticed that someone had written a note, wrapped it in plastic, and had tucked it into a crevice in the tree's roots. There were also various places in the park (on a bench, on a flat stone) where one could see the colorful wax remnants of someone having burned candles. It was in this park that Courtney Love walked and mourned publicly with the throngs that gathered there immediately after Kurt's death. She was known to give away Kurt's clothes to fans and also to sometimes invite them inside the house.

Courtney Love proclaimed after her husband's death that she would build a memorial to Kurt in Seattle. To date nothing has come to fruition. The spirit of Kurt Cobain is decidedly still in that place. While I'm sure the residents of the neighborhood would vociferously oppose any plans to put a memorial or marker in the park, the small quiet wooded area seems a perfect place for a tribute to one of Seattle's tortured artists who left his indelible mark with the songs that defined the angst of a generation.