Bronson was born Charles Buchinsky in 1921 in Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town in the Allegheny Mountains, and he worked in the mines himself before joining the Army Air Forces in 1943. His acting career took off in Europe, where Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) made him a star, and he reached American audiences in a big way with Death Wish in 1974. That year he landed on the cover of People magazine, which puts him near the peak of his U.S. fame when American Home ran its tour of the farm in April 1975.
Bronson married Jill Ireland, an English actress born in Hounslow, in 1968, and she appeared in more than a dozen of his films. The couple bought the Vermont property, an Arabian horse farm, in the early 1970s and named it Zuleika Farm after their daughter, who was 3 years old when the magazine photos were taken. Ireland raised horses there and trained Zuleika to compete in horse shows.
The magazine described a two-story house with six bedrooms and a guest wing, and Ireland said there were rooms she hadn’t gotten around to counting. Flags for the US, Vermont and Britain flew whenever the family was in residence. The dining room was the family’s favorite spot, and Bronson insisted on a round table, explaining, “In this family, no one sits at the head of the table.” He also liked hunting for antiques (the article pictures a carousel horse he bought for Zuleika), and Ireland said the two rarely had guests there beyond the children.
The farm was a working horse business as well. By 1982 the Bronsons and the IRS were disputing whether it counted as one, and the farm manager said the property housed 25 horses, half of them boarders. Ireland died of breast cancer in 1990 at age 54. Bronson married Kim Weeks in 1998 and died on Aug. 30, 2003, at 81. He is buried at Brownsville Cemetery in West Windsor, near the foot of Mount Ascutney, and Ireland’s ashes were interred with him. The farm was offered for sale in 2004.
VIDEO | Charles Bronson & Lee Marvin reflect on their careers in May 1981
Charles Bronson’s house and horse farm in Vermont
by Muriel Davidson, American Home (April 1975)
He has many houses and lives wherever filmmaking takes him, but this superstar is most “at home” in his Vermont farmhouse. “Off-screen, Charlie is a gentle family man,” says actress-wife Jill Ireland.
Below, left: “Charlie and I enjoy being here alone,” says Jill. “We rarely bring guests, just the children.”
Below, right: Bronson delights in searching out antiques, such as this carousel horse he bought for his daughter.
Three flags fly
US, Vermont and British flags fly when the Bronsons, shown with Zuleika, visit their New England retreat. The two-story house has six bedrooms, guest wing and, according to Jill, “rooms I haven’t even counted.”
ALSO SEE: James Coburn’s colorful home was as exotic & unconventional as the actor himself (1970)
Charles Bronson’s Vermont clapboard farmhouse from 1791
The Bronsons’ yellow clapboard farmhouse, set on 260 acres, is tucked behind white birches in the Green Mountains. It was built in 1791 by an English Tory who remained in Vermont after the Revolutionary War.
Jill and Zuleika Bronson
Below: Jill and Zuleika, age 3, have lunch in the family’s favorite spot, the dining room. Bronson insists on a round table, saying “In this family, no one sits at the head of the table.”
Charles Bronson on cover of People magazine (August 19, 1974)
2 Responses
Charles Bronson was,my favorite male actor and he,lived a tragic life when his wife died of breast cancer in California as he loved and cherished her!my Abenaki anscestors,are from the New England ,Quebec area !!
Yes, you rarely saw him smiling after Jill Ireland died. His 3rd wife must have felt like she could never live up to Jill Ireland ~ the woman he would love forever. He had Jill Ireland cremated and put her ashes in a cane which he was buried with when he died in 2003. Sad.