We’re all still considering the somber news that the Cash homestead in Hendersonville, Tennessee was destroyed in a fire Tuesday. It’s weird knowing that the famous Cash family retreat, purchased by John in 1968 — just before he married June, where both artists wrote and recorded their late-in-life masterpieces — exists no more. Some might say that the rustic country castle, which was built into the limestone cliffs overlooking Old Hickory Lake, wasn’t meant to live past its legendary owners, both of whom died in 2003. Maybe. In any case, it’s a significant thing to have lost this place.
We wanted to reminisce about all the cool stuff that happened within the gnarled wooden walls of the famously artifact-filled homestead, so we knocked on Rolling Stone Deputy Managing Editor Jason Fine’s door. Fine has written several memorable pieces on Johnny Cash for this magazine (both of which are featured in the book Cash, a collection of Rolling Stone articles about Johnny that Fine edited), and twice visited the Hendersonville property, once for an interview with the Man in Black himself and another time following John’s death, to speak with John and June’s son John Carter Cash. With Fine’s help, we’ve compiled a nostalgia-drenched list of interesting facts/amusing stories about the Carter-Cash house. Come on, mourn with us…
- John had a giant bell outside the house, which he would ring to announce special occasions or to indicate he had important news.
- The cabin located across the road from the the Hendersonville house is now a recording studio run by John Carter Cash (and it was not damaged in the fire) but before it was converted, John and June used the spot as a vacation home. They would stay at the cabin for the weekend, even though it was only located down the road from the main house.
- Though the house measured an impressive 13,880 square feet, towards the end of his life Johnny spent most of his time in a tiny study. “The room was about ten feet by six feet, crowded with books, antique guns, boxes of bullets and rare coins,” Fine writes in the Editor’s Note to Cash. “This is about my favorite place,” Cash told Fine.
- The house was originally built by Braxton Dixon, and its walls were constructed with local wood, including pieces of old railroad tracks and slats taken from pioneer-era barns.
- At once time Johnny’s property featured a collection of animals, including ostriches, peacocks and two buffalos. John Carter Cash remembers the night Tom Petty battled an emu, Fine reports in his piece “Home Sweet Home: In the Studio With John Carter Cash.” “Tom and the boys were back here having a big night,” John says. “I remember watching them chase the emus and the ostriches, which, “he says with a laugh, “is not a good idea.”
- Roy Orbison was, for a time, Johnny and June’s neighbor.
- Everyone from Bob Dylan, to President Carter, to Billy Graham visited the house over the years. And apparently Kris Kristofferson once landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn to pitch him a song!
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- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC.
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