Conway Twitty‘s former home is at risk of demolition, according to a new report. The late country icon’s former estate in the affluent Nashville suburb of Hendersonville is at risk of being destroyed due to plans for a new development.
Twitty’s estate in Hendersonville, Tenn., was also the site of Twitty City, which was a popular Nashville tourist attraction until his death in 1993. According to the Nashville Tennessean, Trinity Broadcasting Network bought the property a year later, and it was most recently being used to film Huckabee before a tornado swept the area in December and directly impacted the structural integrity of the former mansion.
The country legend’s residence was already at risk before the tornado, as the building is old and not very well suited to its current purpose. A proposed construction project would raze the existing structure to make way for TBN’s plan to rezone the area to develop a number of assisted living and independent living facilities, as well as a newly expanded studio.
After the tornado damage, there’s no way to save the building, according to Frank Amedia, president of TBN’s real estate division. He says the “whole building was twisted.”
“We have 100 staff people — production editors — that are all displaced,” Amedia states. “Some are working from home, some are trying to work in a building that’s unsafe right now to be honest with you, were trying to get them out of there quickly.”
Amedia says developers intend to save the famous “Hello Darlin'” sign from the Twitty property, and he’d like to pay tribute to the singer’s legacy in a more fitting way if he could get the rights in order, displaying memorabilia from his career in the new studio.
“I think if we go forward to try and bring forth a revival identity of what Twitty was there, I think that satisfies a lot because right now you have no identity of Twitty there,” Amedia shares. “You can’t see the Twitty bird, the brick wall is there but most people don’t know what it is.”
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