Phish bassist Mike Gordon put his Essex Junction, VT home on the market in late December, 2020, looking to get $895,000 for the 12-acre homestead. First purchased by Gordon in 2003 for $425,000, the 3,400-square-foot, 3-bedroom, 4-bath contemporary-style house, built in 1990, has a finished basement, eat-in kitchen and multiple balconies, but the stunning draw for many will be the gorgeous attic recording studio.
Gordon has put the home facility to good use over the years, recording solo albums like The Green Sparrow (2008) and Moss (2010) there, as well as parts of his 2020 collaboration album with Leo Kottke, Noon. Looking through the real estate listing for the house, clearly other rooms have been used for recording as well, including a second-floor bedroom with conspicuous acoustic treatments.
The two-room studio has radiant heat to keep things quietly warm in cold Vermont, and features an antique painted-tin ceiling, reclaimed cypress walls, stained glass and a curved bank of windows with views of the Green Mountains.
Passing through reclaimed mahogany doors to the control room, visitors are greeted by more stained glass and a variety of recording gear. Centered around a circa-2001 Digidesign Control|24 control surface, the room also sports a good-sized rack of outboard gear, adjacent patch bay and a Grace Design M906 monitor controller to switch between the consumer multimedia speakers and Dynaudio BM6A nearfield monitors on hand.
Peek Inside the Home Studio of Danny Elfman
Finally, there’s sure to be plenty of good vibes that have soaked into those cypress walls from all the years of music-making, and that’s something you can’t put a price tag on.
