Neil Young may be a huge star, but after decades in the limelight, he appears to have turned his back on Hollywood.
The 79-year-old and his wife, actress Daryl Hannah, have owned homes in Colorado and California, but around September 2020, they made a move to Canada during the coronavirus pandemic.
Rural Canada
The couple settled in a 116-year-old cottage on a lake in Omemee, near his hometown of Ontario, and they loved it so much, they stayed longer than expected.
“We winterized it, a 116-year-old wooden beauty and we stayed almost six months there in Canada near my hometown, where I first had started to go to school,” he wrote on his Neil Young Archives website.
© GC Images“All that time the lockdown was still in effect in Canada as the pandemic raged. We stayed home with the rare gift of focus,” he added.
Ode to Canada
Neil and Daryl bought the property in rural Ontario after several visits, as he has always had a soft spot for his home country.
“I love Canada. Coming back is always a joy. There’s a certain lightness to Canada that is not like any other place,” he once told The Globe and Mail.
© Getty Images for SXSW“People are friendly. It’s a beautiful, natural country compared to other places on the planet. It’s in my blood. When I come to Canada, I feel like I’m home. I feel relaxed, and the longer I stay, the more comfortable I get.”
Malibu fires
Throughout his career, Neil has owned many properties, but he has had some unfortunate luck with his homes in California.
In November 2018, his Malibu home was destroyed by the Woolsey fire, which caused Neil to write an open letter on his website after Donald Trump, who was also the president at the time, blamed the fires on the state of California itself.
© Getty ImagesLamenting Trump and highlighting the devastating effects of climate change, Neil penned: “California is vulnerable – not because of poor forest management as DT (our so-called president) would have us think.
“We are vulnerable because of climate change; the extreme weather events and our extended drought is part of it.
“Our temperatures are higher than ever here in our hottest summer on record. That has not helped.”
© Getty ImagesHe continued: “California is a paradise for us all. A gift, we are sad to not be able to defend it against Mother Nature’s wrath. We love California. We are not ill-prepared. We are up against something bigger than we have ever seen.
“It’s too big for some to see at all. Firefighters have never seen anything like this before in their lives. I have heard that said countless times in the past two days, and I have lost my home before to a California fire, now another.”
© Getty ImagesHe added: “Hopefully we can come together as a people to take Climate Change on. We have the tools and could do it if we tried. There is no downside.”
Neil lost another Malibu home in October 1978, after Meeker Mansion – the home where he lived while recording albums like “Zuma” – was burned to the ground in an arson fire.
In 2007, Indigo Ranch, a Malibu recording studio where Neil had worked, was also lost to a fire.
