Ringo Starr’s former estate is set for demolition

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Oligarch to bulldoze Beatles’ £5.8m mansion: Ringo Starr’s six-bed Surrey retreat where John Lennon lived with Yoko Ono will be demolished for new mega-basement home
· It was home to Ringo Starr and John Lennon and appeared in a film
· Sunny Heights has been a place of pilgrimage for fans of The Beatles
· It's now set for demolition as oligarch Vladimir Scherbakov bought it
· He wants to bulldoze the famous home and build a new one in its place
By SAM CREIGHTON SHOWBIZ REPORTER FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 31 October 2015

It was once home to Ringo Starr and John Lennon and even appeared in The Magical Mystery Tour – for decades Sunny Heights has been a place of pilgrimage for fans of The Beatles.
But Starr’s former estate is now set for demolition after being bought by Russian oligarch Vladimir Scherbakov, 55, who wants to bulldoze the famous home and build a new one in its place.
After the drummer bought the Surrey mansion in 1965, it became where band retreated from the public eye. It even had its own bar on site, The Flying Cow, where Starr would play host to his friends away from the limelight.


It was once home to Ringo Starr and John Lennon and even appeared in The Magical Mystery Tour – for decades Sunny Heights has been a place of pilgrimage for fans of The Beatles

He bought the mock-Tudor mansion with his then wife Maureen Starkey for just £37,000 ($57,000). Just a short drive from both Lennon’s Kenwood mansion and George Harrison’s Kinfauns estate, it quickly became an important part of life among the Beatles.
One of the scenes from their film The Magical Mystery Tour, when Starr projected images onto George Harrison’s face, was filmed in its extensive gardens. They also used it as the location for photo shoots.
Starr eventually moved out in 1968 and it was briefly called home by Lennon and Yoko Ono, after they sold their nearby Kenwood estate, before it was sold itself the following year. Subsequent owners always appeared to respect the home’s musical legacy until Scherbakov bought it for £5.8million ($9million) in 2013, paying for it in full up-front.
The former deputy prime minister of the Soviet Union, reportedly worth £912million ($1.4billion), has now been granted planning permission by Elmbridge Borough Council to knock down the six-bedroom Sunny Heights and build a new mansion in its place.


Ringo Starr takes a stroll in the gardens of his home in Weybridge, Surrey with his wife Maureen in 1967


The Beatles: John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in 1967




The current house is already impressive, boasting its own cinema, swimming pool and library. But this does not seem to be enough for Scherbakov. 
He plans to replace it with a sprawling mansion, complete with huge basement and underground swimming pool, wine cellar and gym.
At the end of the Soviet era in 1990, Scherbakov was appointed first deputy prime minister of the USSR and head of its economic planning agency.
He quickly built up his vast fortune. In 1991, after the collapse of the USSR, he founded a company to privatise companies in the former Communist state. 
Five years later he set up another company assembling foreign cars, which in 2013 was the second biggest carmaker in Russia.





Ringo and wife Maureen lived in "Sunny Heights", on South Road, Surrey, from 1965 through 1968