“The historical link has not been made”: a real estate developer mistakenly destroys the house where the AC/DC group was born

Fans will no longer be able to see the house where the rock group AC/DC was founded. The venue located in the suburb of Sydney, Australia, at 4 Burleigh Street, was destroyed last month by a property developer who knew nothing of its history, reports Nine News.

“Unfortunately, the historical connection to AC/DC has not been made, and we regret that the previous owner did not share this information with us about the history of the property,” said Leon Kamita, the director general of the Burwood Square company, responsible for the destruction. “Learning about this link when our plans were already in progress shocked us,” he added in a statement.

A 50-story tower to replace it

The developer bought the property in March 2023 for 5.8 million Australian dollars (around 3.5 million euros), with the intention of building a 50-story tower with 120 hotel rooms and 48 apartments. .

The family of Malcolm and Angus Young, the group’s co-founders, moved into this house in 1965. It was there that they created the group AC/DC when they were teenagers. Their brother, George Young, guitarist for another popular rock band, the Easybeats, also lived there.

A “period of group habitation that is too brief”

The house had been in “disrepair” since the Young family left in 1978. And although the house was listed on the Australian National Trust register in 2013, it was not given historic protection to prevent its demolition.

In 2015, Burwood Town Council ruled that the band’s “period of habitation was too brief to be relevant to the life and work of AC/DC”. The report also found that the house did not meet “the criteria for aesthetic significance” and had “no known technical or research value”.

However, the council continues to celebrate the group’s heritage. A huge mural dedicated to Angus and Malcolm Young has been installed in the neighborhood, a few meters from where their former home stood.