For a couple of years, Beach Boy Brian Wilson called St. Charles home

Legendary Beach Boys leader and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Brian Wilson, who died Wednesday at age 82, was synonymous with a youthful West Coast lifestyle of surfing, hot rods and “California girls.”

He also spent time in Illinois, living in a five-bedroom St. Charles home with a custom-built basement recording studio.

Wilson, then working with producer Joe Thomas, wrote and recorded much of his 1998 solo album “Imagination” in that studio.

“Very sorry to learn of his passing,” St. Charles Mayor Clint Hull said. “St. Charles was always proud to have Brian Wilson as a member of our community.”

It wasn’t for long.

According to a 2011 Daily Herald story, the Inglewood, California, native and his wife, Melinda, bought the house in 1997 for $1.4 million to work with Thomas, who had established River North Recorders in Chicago.

For convenience, Wilson and Thomas lived next to each other in the Crane Road Estates subdivision near Randall Road and North Avenue.

Wilson built additions, including the basement recording studio with a mixing room and three recording rooms.

“He used to go out to eat,” recalled former St. Charles Mayor Sue Klinkhamer, whose 1997 to 2005 tenure included Wilson’s stay in the city. “He would go out to one of the local restaurants pretty often, that was ZaZa’s. It was pretty regularly that he would go out to eat – [almost] every night. I think people kind of left him alone.”

She also recalled a Wilson performance at the Norris Cultural Arts Center with an after-party at Thomas’ house.

With Wilson and Thomas co-producing “Imagination,” the album debuted at No. 88 on the Billboard 200. The album included “Lay Down Burden,” dedicated to his late brother Carl, and also “Your Imagination,” written by Brian Wilson, Thomas and Chicago radio personality Steve Dahl.

After a falling out with Thomas in 1999, the Wilsons put the house on the market and moved back to California. The house sold after two years on the market.

Thomas died April 28, 2024.

Most recently, according to Zillow, the almost 10,000-square-foot home was listed in January for $2 million. It was sold March 7 for $1.7 million. The basement recording studio had been divided into spaces for a kitchen, office, bar, exercise room and other uses, according to the listing.

Before Wilson left St. Charles in 1999, the musician did a live promotional taping for “Imagination” in the St. Charles East High School auditorium, with guest musicians Christopher Cross, The Eagles’ Timothy B. Schmit and The Beach Boys’ Bruce Johnston.

Wilson’s time in St. Charles was “one of our claims to fame … pre-Donnie Wahlberg,” Klinkhamer said.

“It was a great time because St. Charles was really booming,” she said. “He just added to the mystery of it all.”