Astoria (recording studio)

Astoria is a grand houseboat, built in 1911 for impresario Fred Karno, and adapted as a recording studio in the 1980s by its new owner, Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour. It is moored on the River Thames at Hampton, Greater London. Gilmour purchased the boat in 1986, because he "spent half of [his] life in recording studios with no windows, no light, but on the boat there are many windows, with beautiful scenery on the outside".

The boat was built in 1911 for impresario Fred Karno who wanted to have the best houseboat on the river to become permanently moored alongside his hotel the Karsino at Tagg's Island. He designed it so that there could be an entire 90-piece orchestra playing on deck.

The boat is framed in mahogany and has mainly Crittall windows with taller, wider windows towards one end. It is topped by very ornate metalwork canopies and balustrades.

I just happened to find this beautiful boat that was built as a houseboat and was very cheap, so I bought it. And then only afterward did I think I could maybe use it to record. The control room is a 30-foot by 20-foot room. It's a very comfortable working environment--- three bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, a big lounge. It's 90 feet long.

Gilmour bought the boat after seeing it advertised for sale in a copy of Country Life magazine in his dentist's waiting room, just a short while after admiring it while being driven past its moorings.

Parts of each of the last three Pink Floyd studio albums, A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987), The Division Bell (1994), and The Endless River (2014), were recorded on the boat, as were parts of Gilmour's solo album, On an Island (2006). His most recent solo album, Rattle That Lock (2015) was mixed and had partially been recorded there. It was also used for mixing the Pink Floyd live albums Delicate Sound of Thunder (1988) and Pulse (1995) as well as the Pulse film (1995), Gilmour's Remember That Night DVD/Blu-ray (2007) and his Live in Gdańsk (2008) live album/DVD.

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