A former “Rocky” star is helping to create what he describes as a “home for the rock star.”
Moses Williams, who died last year at the age of 85, helped his friend and fellow rock star, Billy Joel, set up a nonprofit to help people create and decorate homes, according to his website.
It was not clear if the home would be used for commercial or non-profit purposes.
Williams, who is the son of composer Joe Williams, said in an interview with The Wall St. Journal last month that his goal was to provide a place where people can go and experience living on a ranch for free.
The “Living Museum” will be a “virtual museum of living history,” Williams said, where visitors can experience living a life of “the rock star” and others like him, he added.
He said he is trying “to create a place for people to go and see their own stories, experiences and connect with their ancestors.”
“I have a love for the history of rock stars, and they’re like the only people I’ve ever met,” Williams told The Wall, the newspaper’s hometown.
Williams had a lifelong interest in the art of living, having been born in a coal mining town in West Virginia and raised in an isolated, coal-mining area in Kentucky.
His grandfather, Moses Moses Williams, is a well-known art collector, and the family moved to Las Vegas when he was 5.
Williams said he and Joel had a shared fascination with the “rock star” genre, and began developing a “dream project” to raise money for a “rock museum” in the early 1990s.
In 2010, he said, he had a breakthrough: “We were able to find a home for the Rock and roll museum.”
It was the first of five projects that followed.
In 2011, Williams said he turned his attention to building a home in California for a musician, who had recently moved to the state, and who was looking to make a home-making career.
Williams and Joel met on the set of “The Rock and Roll Years,” the 1991 movie in which Joel played the lead role.
Joel later wrote and starred in the 2002 film “Rockstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.”
Joel’s mother, Rosemary, told The Associated Press that she was deeply touched by his death.
“He was such a generous person,” she said.
“I think he always loved people and the people he cared about, whether it was for a family or a friend.”
“He loved to have people and just be with them, and I think that’s what he was really about.”
A few years after “Rock and Roll,” Joel sold the “Rock Star Ranch” in Los Angeles to a group of friends and investors, who built a home on the property and installed lights and furniture.
Joel’s death in 2010 left the “Ranch” in disrepair, but it still attracted people to visit and make memories with his former friends.
The Rock Museum will be open to the public on Sunday, Jan. 22, 2018.
It will have free admission, and there will be no charge for the museum.
