Fire destroys longtime Johnny Cash home
04/10/2007 9:22 PM, AP
Johnny Cash's longtime lakeside home, a showcase where he wrote much
of his famous music and entertained U.S. presidents, music royalty
and visiting fans, was destroyed by fire on Tuesday.
Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, lived in the 13,880-square-foot
home from the late 1960s until their deaths in 2003.
"So many prominent things and prominent people in American history
took place in that house — everyone from Billy Graham to Bob Dylan
went into that house," said singer Marty Stuart, who lives next door
and was married to Cash's daughter, Cindy, in the 1980s.
Stuart said the man who designed the house, Nashville builder Braxton
Dixon, was "the closest thing this part of the country had to Frank
Lloyd Wright."
When Cash moved there, the road was a quiet country lane that skirts
Old Hickory Lake. Kris Kristofferson, then an aspiring songwriter,
once landed a helicopter on Cash's lawn to pitch him a song. Roy
Orbison was his next-door neighbor for a while.
Parts of the landmark video for Cash's song "Hurt" was shot inside
the house.
"It was a sanctuary and a fortress for him," Stuart said. "There was
a lot of writing that took place there."
Richard Sterban of the Oak Ridge Boys lives on the same road as
Cash. "Maybe it's the good Lord's way to make sure that it was only
Johnny's house," Sterban said.
The property was purchased by Barry Gibb, a former member of the Bee
Gees, in January 2006. Gibb and his wife, Linda, had said they
planned to restore the home on Old Hickory Lake and hoped to write
songs there. They had not yet moved in to the home, which they bought
for a reported $2.3 million.
Gibb's spokesman, Paul Bloch, said the singer and his family
are "both saddened and devastated by the news."
Dixon built the three-story house in 1967 for his own family, but
Cash fell in love with it. Dixon was reluctant to sell, but Cash kept
after him.
"It was a very, very unusual contemporary structure," said Cash's
brother, Tommy Cash. "It was built with stone and wood and all kinds
of unusual materials, from marble to old barn wood. I don't think
there was a major blueprint. I think the builder was building it the
way he wanted it to look."
The younger Cash said many holidays and family get-togethers were
spent at the house. And while Johnny and June also owned a house in
Jamaica and a second house in Tennessee, they considered this one to
be their home.
"Johnny and June lived there the entire time they were married,"
Tommy Cash said. "It was the only house they lived in together until
they both passed on."
The fire, in this suburb about 20 miles northeast of downtown
Nashville, started around 1:40 p.m. Fire trucks arrived within five
minutes, but the house was already engulfed in flames, Hendersonville
Fire Chief Jamie Steele said.
Just a few hours later, there was almost nothing left except stone
chimneys.
The cause is unknown, but Steele said the flames spread quickly
because construction workers had recently applied a flammable wood
preservative to the exterior of the house. The preservative was also
being applied inside the house.
No workers were injured, but one firefighter was slightly hurt while
fighting the fire, Steele said.
Cash's long career, which began in the 1950s, spanned rock 'n' roll,
folk and country. His hits included "Ring of Fire," "Folsom Prison
Blues" and "I Walk the Line."
