Benton, Illinois is marketing a Beatles footnote as a real estate listing: the five-bedroom bungalow at 113 McCann Street, where George Harrison stayed during a September 1963 visit to his sister’s family, is now for sale for $105,000, according to the Associated Press. The listing has stirred concern among Beatles fans because the home has faced demolition threats before. The most direct stakes this time are whether the next owner will preserve the house or seek to replace it.
Harrison’s stay came before U.S. Beatlemania, when the Beatles’ U.S. debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show” was still months away, the AP reported. The trip placed Harrison about 100 miles southeast of St. Louis in Benton, where he spent time outdoors, played with local musicians, drank root beer delivered on roller skates, and shopped for records.
The same Benton home has an earlier chapter of civic and cultural intervention. In 1995, activists—including Harrison’s sister, Louise Harrison Caldwell, who had moved away in the late 1960s—helped prevent a plan to tear it down. The AP reported that a state agency had bought the house from a subsequent owner with the aim of flattening it for parking, drawing a response from those determined to keep it standing.
After the state acquisition, local investors repurchased the property and opened the Hard Day’s Nite Bed and Breakfast, according to the AP. The AP said the business featured the couch Harrison traded “guitar licks” on and a collection of loaned Beatles memorabilia, including items tied to author and documentarian Robert Bartel of Springfield.
The bed-and-breakfast closed in 2010. Since then, Benton resident Grady Adams has operated the building as regular bed-and-bath apartments, and he is now seeking to sell it, the AP said. Adams listed the property for $105,000, and the question of whether Benton would pursue added protections has become part of the discussion.
The AP reported that Adams suggested local steps could help preserve the house, and that Benton director of economic development Brian Calcaterra urged the city to draft an ordinance to protect the property from demolition by a new owner. Benton Mayor Lee Messersmith said the city council has not discussed the matter. “Of course, if it doesn’t get demo’d, I would prefer that,” Adams said, according to the report.
While some interest in reviving the property as a Beatles-themed attraction has emerged, the AP said enthusiasm may not match the intensity of the 1995 push. Jim Kirkpatrick, author of “Before He Was Fab,” told the AP that he has had at least one encouraging conversation with someone considering purchase. Robert Rea, a historian who helped save the house three decades ago, said the obsession has faded since then. He said, “When we did this (in 1995), the world went crazy because they thought, ‘George is going to come, he’s going to save the house,’” and added, “And I’m just being honest with you, maybe I’m missing it or something, but that momentum is not here.”
Details from Harrison’s Benton day-to-day life are tied to the house’s story, including his radio appearance during the visit. The AP said that while in Benton, Harrison and Caldwell stopped by WFRX radio, where then-17-year-old Marcia Schafer Raubach hosted a Saturday afternoon teen program. Harrison gave Raubach a copy of “She Loves You,” which he told her had just hit the top of the British charts. Raubach, now 79, later said she still has the 45 record and recalled the interview as the first for a Beatle in America. “If I had known what they were going to become, I would have handled that differently,” Raubach said. She added: “It’s still amazing that he even came here and that I met him. I think he really liked Southern Illinois.”
The AP reported that Harrison never returned to Benton and died in 2001 at age 58, while Caldwell died in 2023 at age 91. With the house again facing the question of what happens next, the AP said it is now up to Benton residents and prospective buyers to determine whether the property will remain a remembered landmark from a brief pre-fame visit—or take a different path as a new owner weighs the future.