Hendersonville
Although the house has been destroyed recently due to a fire we do post an article with beautiful photo material like earlier planned to post by GSI. It shows the Cash / Gibb property to remind us all how it once looked like.
(also with thanks to Joan Heck and Marcel Troost).
In this Tennessee house singer-songwriter Johnny Cash lived for 35 years. Barry Gibb and his wife, Linda, paid $2.3 million for the property, according to Robert Sullivan, an attorney who sold the site on behalf of the estate. The 4.6-acre property in the town of Hendersonville, about 15 miles north of Nashville includes a pool as well as the seven-bedroom, lakefront home with five full bathrooms. The property first went on the market in June 2005 with an asking price of $2.9 million, later cut to $2.5 million. Tommy Cash, the singer’s surviving brother and a real-estate agent with Crye-Leike Realtors in Hendersonville, had the listing and says the sale included several antique furnishings, such as the couple’s bed. In 1968, Mr. Cash, who was moving back to Nashville from Los Angeles, came across the home while it was under construction and asked the builder if he could buy it, according to Tommy Cash. The builder outfitted it according to the singer’s wishes. Johnny Cash wrote many of his songs at the house, the only property he and his wife, June Carter Cash, ever shared. The property served as the Cashes’ main home up until the death of Mrs. Cash from heart-surgery complications in 2003. Her husband died from complications from diabetes resulting in respiratory failure four months later. (The makers of the 2005 Cash biopic “Walk the Line” substituted another house, which played an important part in the movie.) The singer converted a log cabin next door into a recording studio; his son, John Carter Cash, still owns that. Roy Orbison was a longtime neighbor. The Gibbs bought the property in the name of a trust, public records show. The couple plan to restore the Cash house to its original condition and use it as a summer home, according to Mr. Gibb’s publicist. The Gibbs’ main residence is in Florida.
Also visit: www.tennessean.com and scroll down to June 13, 2006, Walk The Line. And a slide show of the old Johnny Cash Home at: www.cmt.com
Thursday, July 13th it was about 1:30p.m. eastern time for me and I was standing in front of Barry Gibb’s new home in Hendersonville. It was a very hot-humid day, 97 degrees F. We noticed a lot of cars and trucks in both drive-ways next to the house so I got really excited thinking Barry’s family was there. But it turned out they were not there. There were a lot of people there but they were carpenters and electricians busy remodelling the house. As I walked past the guard house I noticed the television was on inside it however there was no guard.
I noticed the large white gate to the lower drive-way was not latched. Sooooo……. with the help of my finger and a nice little breeze the gate just happened to open wide enough for me to stroll into the drive-way. As I walked a little way down the drive-way, all of a sudden I heard the gate slam shut behind me. I walked a little bit farther there was a white electrician’s van parked in the drive-way and a young electrician. I asked him if I could tour around the house. He said he had no authority to tell me not to, so I asked: so that means, I can??? He just shrugged his shoulders and walked away….and then he said: “I’m surprised you’re not taking any pictures yet”. At this time I walked back to the gate and opened it for Mike & John (my husband and son).
I was surprised they were still there and not on their way in our mini van without me. So they walked into the drive-way, too. I had John take some pictures of me on the round side of the house. We were looking in the windows of the round room. What an amazing room. There’s a very narrow flat stone staircase winding up to another level with a very unique kind of banister made of some kind of wood carving. The room was large and empty. On the outside of this round room is another flat stone stairway going up to the front yard. I had John take a picture of me on that stairway. As I got to the top of that stairway in the front yard, I saw an elderly man with white hair walking into the front door. I wanted to say something to him but I thought I better not. I went back down the outside stairway and walked to the back of the house on the lake side.
At this time Mike and John are still so nervous. I, on the other hand, am enjoying every moment and taking it all in. The young electrician came outside again and we were talking to him. He asked if we had seen an elderly man with white hair. I said we did. He said the elderly man’s name is Brack Dixon and that he is the man that actually built the house when Johnny Cash bought the house from him. He said this elderly man builds log homes and likes to restore old homes with old wooden boards. Now I wished I would have said hello to him when I saw him in the front yard going into the house. Speaking of old boards, I brought that 3 foot piece of fence with me on the trip just in case Barry would have been there to autograph it for me. Maybe someday. Don’t know when I will ever get back down that way to Hendersonville again. In the meantime, I will have Mike hang that board up on our family room wall as a shelf and I will put my autographed picture of Barry on it. I’m just glad I got as close to the “Barry Gibb Home” as I did. It’s fun to be daring sometimes.
Love, Joan H.
(photo material copyright: Joan Heck)
Marcel visited the property in Hendersonville in September 2006. He loved the property and specially the way it was situated. It’s a special place and let’s hope Barry and Linda will be able to build a new home there for them selves. Click here for the slide show of photos Marcel took of the Cash /Gibb house and its surroundings.