Twitty City has long been a thing of the past.
The Hendersonville home of Conway Twitty, known as “Twitty City,” served as an entertainment complex and tourist attraction in the 1980s, but closed its doors in 1994, a year after the country music legend passed away.
The property was auctioned off that year and bought by Trinity Broadcasting Network, a Christian television network that produces faith-based programming.
Renamed Trinity Music City, the former property owned by Conway Twitty now serves as the studio for shows like Huckabee, the talk show hosted by former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
But it might not be around much longer.
After tornadoes ripped through Nashville and Hendersonville last December, the mansion and many of the surrounding buildings on the complex suffered significant damage. And the owners told the Hendersonville Planning Commission that Twitty’s former home may end up having to be demolished:
“The mansion, before that, was in bad shape. Now it’s in real bad shape.”
Frank Amedia of TBN said that the entire roof of the house was ripped off by the storm:
“If it had collapsed in completely, that theater would be gone. The mansion roof came up and came down and was twisted.”
But Amedia says that if the building does end up having to come down, they hope to save parts of the historic property and honor its former owner:
“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. You can’t see the Twitty bird, the brick wall is there but most people don’t know what it is.”
A final decision hasn’t been made yet on demolishing the building yet, but it sounds like Twitty City’s days may be numbered.
