Great news for Conway Twitty fans.
Earlier this month, it was reported that the former home of the country music legend faced demolition after tornadoes ripped through Nashville and the surrounding areas last month, causing major damage to the mansion.
The Hendersonville mansion formerly 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 the mansion and many of the surrounding buildings on the complex suffered significant damage in the December tornadoes. 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 did end up having to come down, they hoped 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.”
There was significant public outcry over the potential demolition of this piece of country music history, including from Twitty’s daughter Joni Ryles:
“We would much rather drive by and see it standing because dad worked so hard to build this place and make it a special place for fans to come and enjoy and for our family to live.”
And it seems like the calls to save the property have been heard.
Earlier this week, TBN presented a new plan to the Hendersonville Board of Mayor & Alderman to restore the mansion and save it from the wrecking ball.
Amedia explained why the change of heart:
“We heard the sentiment of the city very well, we prayed about it. We met with some people … and we just felt that this was the right thing to do…
It’s going to cost us more money but that wasn’t the issue. The issue is what the heart of the city was.”
He also said they hope to use the mansion to pay tribute to Twitty, with the hopes of reaching out to the community for memorabilia after most of the family’s memorabilia was sold at auction.
