Ever wanted to bathe in the tub where Kurt Cobain (supposedly) wrote "Heart-Shaped Box"?
Starting around $150 per night, you can stay in the Fairfax District apartment where Cobain and Courtney Love shacked up in just before the birth of their daughter Frances. "The place is the perfect combination of comfort, style, location and...rock n' roll history," says the Airbnb listing for the apartment on the 400 block of North Spaulding Avenue.
Although the apartment's history isn't exactly a secret now, the landlord originally tried to keep it on the down-low before the current occupant. "He kept it a secret because he wasn't getting great tenants when he advertised the apartment's backstory. He went on to tell me about what it was like having Kurt Cobain live here, and what to watch for," Brandon Kleinman, the apartment's current tenant, told Vulture. "Once every 60 days or so, I'll get a weird, older gentleman, a rocker-type dude, sort of a burnout, knocking on the door, saying, 'Do you know what used to happen here?'"
According to biographer Charles R. Cross in the L.A. Times, Cobain eschewed touring after getting married to Love and spent most of his time holed up in the apartment doing drugs painting with a mix of cigarette ashes and his bodily fluids and excretions. FeelNumb has photos of Cobain hanging out in the messy space, including some of the tagging he left on the walls (with nods to Matador Records exec Gerard Cosloy and D.C. punk band Nation of Ulysses).
"I know there's tons of art painted on the actual mantel of the fireplace. I want to see if there's a way to get under the layered paint, to see what he painted under there," says Kleinman.
Cobain and Love moved out in late 1992 when Love was 8-months pregnant—because of faulty plumbing in the tub that flooded the space—to Hollywood Heights, near the famed Long Goodbye apartment. That same tub was, according to legend, where Cobain wrote "Heart-Shaped Box." Photos of what they left behind were published last year, showing supposed drug paraphernalia, but mostly clutter including a letter from Senator Congressman Henry Waxman and a VHS of the "Come As You Are" music video. The place is much nicer now.
"It gets rented out about four or five times a year," says Kleinman. "I think Airbnb buried the listing for some reason. I don't get a lot of interest in it."
Visitors to the space can enjoy all the modern amenities, along with a short walk to Canter's on Fairfax—just like Kurt.
