A Gothic Rock Cottage Fit for a Bat Out of Hell - The New York Times

Jim Steinman spent years transforming his Connecticut house into a kind of rock ‘n’ roll museum.

“As far as Jim was concerned, life was about being forever young, and lusting after this and yearning after that,” said David Sonenberg, Mr.

Steinman’s legacy like the Connecticut house where he lived alone for some 20 years — a majestic museum of the self, attached to a quaint cottage in the woods of Ridgefield.

Sonenberg said.

Steinman, a lifelong bachelor who had been in declining health for years, left no instructions about what he wanted done with the house after his death.

“We are going to try to keep Jim’s vision and legacy intact,” said Jacqueline Dillon, Mr.

“I wrote a song called ‘Pear Tree in the Shade,’” he said.

Steinman buy the Ridgefield house: “I said, ‘It’s perfect — you’re by yourself, you never have any guests.’ And he said no, it was too small.”.

Steinman was working with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the musical “Whistle Down the Wind,” he visited Lloyd Webber’s manor house, Sydmonton Court, in Hampshire, England, and “was just blown away,” Mr.

Sonenberg said.

Steinman decided to buy the Ridgefield cottage, paying about $425,000, and convert it into a soaring sanctuary, a creation as epic as his music.

Sonenberg said, could be sold to a school or institution and used for a combination of living, office and performance space.

(A few years after getting the Public Theater gig, Mr. Steinman, always pitching, wrote a letter to Mr. Papp asserting that “writing and conceiving serious strong musical dramatic works” was something “I really think I can do better than anyone I’ve ever come across or heard about.”).

Steinman later used that home mostly as an office and for wine storage, and moved into a rented house in the woods of Putnam County, N.Y., with a bunch of cats.

He called the Ridgefield cottage “the house that ‘Bat II’ built,” Ms.

“Jim used the expression ‘cottage to compound.’” The album opened with the hit “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That),” with an accompanying video depicting Meat Loaf as a “Beauty and the Beast”-like recluse living alone in a gothic mansion.

Steinman a book by the influential California architect Bernard Maybeck, he said, and “Jim knew I got his sensibility.”.

“Jim wanted the gables, from left to right, to become slightly larger,” he said.

“I remember doing skull-and-crossbones for the faucets in the powder room off the great room.

Steinman in Manhattan and helped him select and place the artwork, “Jim never saw the house until it was done,” he said.

The original part of the house — bright and sunny — includes a large living room with Mr.

Dillon said.

Dillon said.

The “good room” — not to be confused with the great room — holds one of his wheelchairs, which he needed after suffering a series of strokes.

Sonenberg said.

Steinman referred to the unused guest room as the “Wendy Bedroom,” after the heroine of “Peter Pan.” The plush bear on the bed hails from the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, in London, which owns the intellectual property rights to “Peter Pan” and denied Mr.

Sonenberg said.

Sonenberg said.

Parallel to the wardrobe hallway is a long corridor leading to the great room, lined with patent leather panels and used by visitors — most recently, those working on “Bat Out of Hell: The Musical,” which is touring in Britain and is slated to open in Las Vegas in September.

Beyond the bedroom is the house’s focal point, the great room, centered around a stainless steel sculpture resembling a cluster of giant quartz crystals — an allusion to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.

Steinman often used the tiny kitchenette off the great room, stocked with fresh fruit and cans of Progresso soup

Dillon said

Steinman used it for storage — he didn’t drive or have a license

Dillon said

“Every house needs its own approach, whether it’s a $500,000 home or a $5 million home,” she said