Ronnie Milsap's House

Ronnie Milsap, blind since infancy, came up from Robbinsville, North Carolina, to become country's crossover king of the late 1970s and 80s. He logged 35 Billboard country chart-toppers and won 6 Grammys.

Milsap's house since 1976, bought from Ray Stevens. Stevens wanted out, Milsap recalled, because Webb Pierce lived across the street, sold tapes and records out of his house, and played his music loud.

The same lane holds Far Hills, a 16-room Georgian finished in 1931 for National Life founder William Ridley Wills. It has been Tennessee's official Governor's Residence since the state acquired it in 1949.

Minnie Pearl owned the 4.6 acres next to the governor's mansion with her husband. After her death, the Grand Ole Opry comedienne's house sold in 2007 to vacuum magnate Tom Oreck.

Nearly 50 years on, Davidson County's parcel roll still reads Milsap. A quitclaim dated October 2020 moved the 7.37 acres into the family trust, and the current appraisal puts the land alone past $2M.

Milsap played a farewell Nashville show at Bridgestone Arena on October 3, 2023, at age 80. The retirement is partial: he kept cutting Great American Songbook standards in the studio at the house.

Milsap owned a piece of Music Row too: Roy Orbison's old US Recorders studio, renamed Groundstar Laboratories, his from 1978 to 1995. Black River Entertainment later named the room Ronnie's Place, with his blessing.