From the Associated Press – Firefighters were battling flames this afternoon (April 10) in a major fire that has reportedly destroyed the home of the late country singer Johnny Cash. Dispatchers said all but one of the city’s engines had responded to the fire in the Hendersonville suburb northeast of Nashville.
No injuries were reported. Hendersonville Fire Department officials said construction crews were working at the house when the fire started. The cause is unknown.
Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, lived at the house until their deaths in 2003. The property was purchased by the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb 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.
Gibb’s spokesperson said the 60-year-old singer and his family are “both saddened and devastated by the news” but declined to release further details about the house or the fire.
While the Cashes lived there, the 13,880-square-foot house, about 20 miles northeast of downtown Nashville, was visited by everyone from U.S. presidents to ordinary fans.
“Of course we are all in a state of shock,” Johnny Cash’s sister Joanne said in a statement. “I feel that an era has passed. Just today in prayer, I had decided to move on, even discarding old newspaper clippings not realizing that this terrible thing would happen. My prayers are with the Cash family and especially the Gibb family during this time.”