Every Old School country crooner with scores of number-one hits and more than 30 million albums sold around the world needs a deluxe spread in nearby proximity to Nashville to hang his ten-gallon hat and for the last dozen years Kenny Chesney has bunked down in splendid seclusion on 56 bucolic acres in Franklin, Tenn., about a half-hour’s drive south of Music City.
Though some might say his salad days were a dozen or more years ago, when the Country Music Association awarded him their Entertainer of the Year Award four consecutive times, from 2005 through 2008, Chesney remains a popular entertainer who’s collaborated on songs with a wide variety of artists from Pink and Uncle Kracker to Jimmy Buffett, Reba McEntire and Ziggy Marley. His most recent album, “Here and Now” released last year, debuted at number one — it’s his 16th top 10 album on the US Billboard 200, and, after it was delayed due to Covid-19, he’s now scheduled to embark on a 20-city American tour to promote the album next year.
It was in 2009, about four years after his ever-so-brief and tabloid-obsessed four-month marriage to Renée Zellweger, that Chesney plunked down $9.25 million for his longtime Franklin home that he’s now got on the market with Laura Stroud and Lisa Fernandez-Wilson at French King Fine Properties at nearly $14 million.
The estate’s two gated drives snake across rolling fields and through dense woods before they meet up in a circular drive at the front of the 12,599-square-foot, four-bedroom stone-and-brick residence that more than a little resembles a monastery, down to the faux-aged columns that line the cloistered entrance courtyard.
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Image Credit: Redfin Inside, there are four limestone fireplaces, including one at each end of the double-height living room.
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Image Credit: Redfin Throughout the house, there are reclaimed walnut floorboards, Venetian plaster walls, and hand-forged cedar and Douglas fir ceiling beams.
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Image Credit: Redfin All three floors are serviced by an elevator, and the whole shebang is topped by a third-floor lookout tower with wrap-around views.
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Image Credit: Redfin The multi-winged home’s four bedrooms and seven full and two half bathrooms include a main-floor homeowner’s retreat where stone columns stand between the sitting and sleeping areas. There’s also a luxury bathroom, two dressing rooms and French doors to a private loggia.
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Image Credit: Redfin Three more bedrooms upstairs are joined by a games room.
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Image Credit: Redfin Down in the basement, there’s a drab gym with an office-like dropped ceiling, as well as a lavishly appointed screening room festooned with red brocade wall panels between decorative filigreed screens.
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Image Credit: Redfin Outside, there’s a motor court with garaging for six cars — a separate four-car garage is located near one of the gated entrances, plus an outdoor kitchen and an open-air dining cabana next to the stone-edged swimming pool and spa.
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Image Credit: Redfin The landscaped areas around the house give way to a park-like setting with tree-dotted lawns and a vast meadow with a small pond.
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Image Credit: Redfin Chesney once kept homes in Malibu, Calif., and Key West, Fla., but his heart seems to be in the Caribbean, where he’s long owned a home on the U.S. Virgin Island of St. John. In 2017 Hurricane Irma leveled his house but he’s since then put down new roots on the tiny tropical island.
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