Anyone who’s eagerly tuned in to Architectural Digest’s digital series exploring celebrity homes knows thatthere’s something particularly fascinating about getting a glimpse at how notable people live. And when it comes to the abodes of famous figures from years past, that curiosity can be fairly classified as historical interest.
Viewing the homes of people who changed culture, politics, science, and more goes further than mere intrigue — it can also help us contextualize our existence today. We rounded up nine historical figures’ houses you can walk through, including a few that offer virtual tours accessible from the comfort of your couch.
Judy Garland’s Childhood Home
Judy Garland’s (yellow brick) road to fame started out in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, where she was born in 1922. At her family home, the young vaudeville performer would spend hours singing alongside her father as he played piano. Today, the historic house she spent those formative years in is part of the Judy Garland Museum. Visitors can not only tour the house but also explore the adjacent museum and its “eclectic collection of Judy Garland memorabilia.” See the interior of the Garland family home.
Johnny Cash’s Childhood Home
Before Johnny Cash was the Johnny Cash, he was a young boy growing up in a government resettlement colony for farmers in Dyess, Arkansas, during the Great Depression. There, he would work the cotton fields with his folks and take in gospel music at church. In 2011, Arkansas State University acquired and restored Cash’s boyhood home, and it now serves as a time capsule of how it once looked when his family resided there.
The Mark Twain House
This next entry offers something special to those who can’t get there in person: an immersive virtual tour of the opulent house Samuel Clemens — aka Mark Twain — moved into with his wife and children in 1874. Located in Hartford, Connecticut, the impressive home measures 11,500 square feet and boasts 25 rooms across its three stories. And how’sthis for realism? Visitors get to experience a living history tour with an actor playing a member of the household. According to the Mark Twain House & Museum, “Mark Twain and his family enjoyed what the author would later call the happiest and most productive years of his life in their Hartford home.”
Emily Dickinson’s House
Can’t you just picture it? A pensive Emily Dickinson gazing out the window of her Amherst, Massachusetts, home at a fluttering bird that would inspire the line “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”? OK, so that’s total conjecture, but what we do know for sure is that the acclaimed poet lived in the East Coast homestead on and off since her birth in 1830 — and it was there that she “began to write poetry in earnest,” per The Emily Dickinson Museum. Furnished to appear as it did during her life, the house is open to visitors and also offers a virtual tour so that interested folks at home can imagine themselves in Dickinson’s place.
Abraham Lincoln’s House
You’ve heard about Monticello and Mount Vernon, but what about Honest Abe’s abode? Before his move to the White House, the 16th president and his family lived on the corner of Eighth and Jackson street in Springfield, Illinois, for 17 years as he practiced law. The ornately decorated house now welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors a year to tour the furnished parlor, bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, and more, all of which appear as they did back in 1860. Take a look inside via this 360-degree virtual tour.
Albert Einstein’s Apartment
Albert Einstein lived in several homes throughout his life, but the Bern, Switzerland, apartment he resided in between 1903 and 1905 has special significance: It’s where the physicist developed his theory of relativity. The dwelling is furnished in the style of the time period, and photos and documents relating to Einstein’s achievements are also on display.
Marie Curie’s Tenement House
Another esteemed scientist (and Nobel Prize winner) on our list, Marie Curie was born in a tenement house in Warsaw, Poland, in 1867. And on Oct. 16, 1967 — 100 years after her birth — the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Museum opened in the same, rebuilt tenement house. Acclaimed for discovering radium with husband Pierre, Curie left behind several artifacts that are on exhibition in the museum, including some of her personal correspondence, her desk, and her father’s gold watch.
Shakespeare’s Birthplace
To be or not to be … a fly on the wall of William Shakespeare’s childhood home? To be, of course! If you can make it to England (or already live there), consider heading to Stratford-upon-Avon, about 100 miles northwest of London. It was in this market town that the Bard was born in 1564, in a house now fittingly referred to as Shakespeare’s Birthplace. Visitors can tour the rooms the young writer once walked through and view personal objects in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s collection.
Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul
Frida Kahlo is one of the most beloved artists of the 20th century — just ask the person who recently bought a 1940 self-portrait for $54.7 million at auction, the highest sale price for a work by a female artist. Known for her vibrant use of color, Kahlo spent much of her life in Mexico City in a house as brightly hued as her paintings. She first lived in what’s called The Casa Azul (the blue house) as a child with her family, and later with her partner, famed artist Diego Rivera. The home now serves as a museum and ode to Mexican culture, filled with exhibitions and objects from the couple, including paintings, photos, documents, books, and furnishings.
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