Oh fuck me.... why... did it have to be THATTTT house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. I loved that house more than most people love Graceland. obhhg9babbea I'm about to die here. HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee (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 (1,289-square-meter) 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. 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 (euro1.71 million). 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, from scratch." The younger Cash said many holidays and family get-togethers were spent at the house. And while Johnny and June also owned a getaway 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 (30 kilometers) northeast of downtown Nashville, started around 1:40 p.m. Fire trucks arrived within less than 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."
Well... the thing is that... my dad stopped by Johnny and June's house in 1978 or 79 to pick up bouys, while he was in the coast guard, stationed on the Cimmaron. He often stopped by, since Johnny would always tie stray bouys up to his dock, on Old Hickory Lake, and you got $100 refunds for turning them back in... Johnny didn't care about that, just gave them to my dad or another coastie, to turn in. My dad took me back to the lake, while nobody was there, when we went to Nashville, one year, and the place was just Eden, man. I didn't even really know who Johnny Cash was back then. Now Old Hickory stretches for a good thirty or fourty miles, but they even had the creek source running through part of their living room and a waterfall. I really understand why they wouldn't really need to go anywhere else, besides Jamaica. I never met them or saw them or anything, but I've always felt that Johnny and June were like no other... I mean, they even had monogrammed floormats in their fishing boat... they had a speedboat too, but they put the monogrammed floormats in the fishing boat. They're just two of those people that, no matter what, always make me feel better about things... plus my Grandma grew up in Southwestern VA during the time of the Carter Family and was big into them. Her and her sister-in-law met them. She did freelance writing and we have an article where she used part of the lyrics from Wildwood Flower to describe the Blue Ridge and all of this. They've had a lot of indirect influence on me and I've always felt such immense love for them, seperately as people and as musicians... I hate to see such a piece of history leave us. I don't remember the day June died, but I remember the day Johnny died... I was on the Unnofficial Martin Guitar Forum and everyone was just depressed and dreary and talking about Will the Circle Be Unbroken. That kinda sparked it... I don't know if anyone can understand any of that, but I'm probably still going to visit the place someday, before someone buys it up and builds something on it... unless it's in tribute to them or something. I've pretty much made my decision to stop by Old Hickory on my way to Manchester, for Bonnaroo, in June... and I'll probably go to Muscle Shoals, Alabama and tour the FAME studios and all of that. Man, I think many of you just won't understand... this is nearly as bad to me as both of them being gone. That house has always meant something to me and it was an extension of June and Johnny. Talk about being materialistic, but that's all there is to it.
in an attempt to be optimistic, i'm rather glad a bee gee doesnt live there now. it is sad though. sounds like an AMAZING place.
Yeah, I was just sorta hoping someone (even a Bee Gee) would restore the place before something like this happened... but, I suppose Richard Sterben had a point. I'm glad they didn't have to be here for this one.
Man, that's sad... but strangely appropriate? I mean, at least it burnt down after they died, you know? And then no one else lived in the house, so yeah... it's sad but kind of interesting, I guess.
