I ran across this listing in my quest to find a new home. I like a project but this might just be too much to take on. The home is located in Nashville, TN.
The word “dated” does not do justice to what is going on here. It is like these people had a checklist of decorating trends from the late 60s/early 70s:
green and gold shag carpet? Check
reflective and/or patterned wallpaper? Check
light fixtures on chains? Check
sunken tub? Check
sunken living room? Check
carpeted platform for bed? Check
yellow in every place imaginable? Check
I have to hand it to the listing agent, though. They tried to put a positive spin on things, “WOW! Have you ever seen a home like this? Come on in and continue to be amazed.”
Found By: Lynn
Loveliest comment, by Land of shimp: You have to admire their commitment to the shag, every single one of those stairs is carpeted. Sweet holy Moses, vacuuming that would be taking your life into your own hands.
Get your affairs in order, it’s time to vacuum the stairs.
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Wow, this place is amazing! It would be a travesty of design if it weren’t so well-kept, but as is, it’s practically a cultural treasure.
I vote “cultural treasure” too! I wouldn’t change a thing!
I am sooo glad I wasn’t the only one to like it. I want it actually and don’t think i would change anything!
You are not the only one who thinks this place is awesome! I am fairly obsessed with interior design and all the finishes in the place need are a little tweaking to be awesome. Looks like something from Domino (RIP) or apartmenttherapy.com.
I think I’m going to copy the honeycomb bathroom when I reno my house. Seriously, its too bad that whoever buys this will probably tear it all out
It could be updated SOOO easily with carefully chosen furniture and accessories – although the carpet probably needs to go – my eyes are getting itchy just thinking about the dust!
I would totally buy this house if I lived in Tennessee. Seriously, it’s HUGE, has an AWESOME design throughout, and is under $300,000? That’s a huge bargain. Where I live a house like this would be about 2-3 million, no joke. Too bad I don’t live or want to live in Tennessee.
Well I only live in TN because my family is here, and don’t blame you for not wishing to live here, BUT I would honestly expect this to go for less. A mansion on 20 acres with a pool and guest home and pond is still usually only about $500,000 around here. You can get a decent starter home for $90,000. The cost of living is much lower than other parts of the country from what I understand.
My goodness. $500,000 would get you a pretty decent four-bedroom house in my city, maybe with a nice yard and a newly updated kitchen.
Built in 1974. _Really??_
Don’t miss the looming arched entry that looks like it eats people.
That spiral staircase is cute, but it’s going to get old real fast if it’s the only way to go between floors. Imagine carrying the laundry up and down and up and down. I’m assuming anybody that can afford this is too old to have children, but that staircase + children = trips to the clinic for stitches, if not broken bones. Likewise if somebody old lives there who is not steady on their pins.
“Expansion room” means finished basement.
“Many songs have been written” in the den. Well, yes, it’s Nashville. There’s a lot of song writing. Way more than song recording.
1974 actually did look pretty bad when I was submerged in it. Now, it looks awful.
We had a spiral staircase just like that when I was in high school. The house was built on a hill, so the only rooms downstairs were my and my sister’s bedrooms and a bathroom. No one ever fell and I don’t ever remember struggling with the laundry (we did our own.) The only bad thing about the staircase was that, due to the open design, there were millions of long blond hairs hanging down underneath (who vacuums the bottoms of stairs?). When the sunlight hit the stairs just right, it looked pretty gross.
You have to admire their commitment to the shag, every single one of those stairs is carpeted. Sweet holy Moses, vacuuming that would be taking your life into your own hands.
Get your affairs in order, it’s time to vacuum the stairs.
My sister was such a slob, she and I raked her shag carpet a few times. Not with a shag carpet rake, either, but with the one we used for leaves in the yard.
I was there too (in 1974) and yes, it was pretty awful, and yet… damn. I have often wished I could revisit it, glass grapes and all. This house would scratch that itch.
I don’t know why they bother to have lamps in that yellow bedroom: it’s already glow-in-the-dark without them!
My impressions of my early childhood (I was born in 1977) are of a world where colors were much more saturated than I see now. I particularly remember the world having a warm yellow glow. I think I understand now where that impression came from.
Oooo thta is pretty amazing, a real time capsule. A tad disappointing that there don’t seem to be any pieces of African tribal art anywhere, I thought everywhere had them in those days. And you’ve gotta love the carpeted bed platform! Perhaps someone could pop over and view the place, in order to checkout if one of the bedroom cabinets opens out to reveal a tv with a Betamax video player.
Texcha.. spiral staircases aren’t that dangerous, I lived in a place with a polished wood one for about 10 years and only sprained an ankle on it once. After that I was much more careful….
Heh. We had an African room in my ’70s childhood house. In my parents’ defense: they had actually lived in Africa, and it was items they’d bought there…
And I think those Ugandan drums still look just fine downstairs in our ’95 post-and-beam house! Though I admit the spears are dismantled and stored in the garage….
Psst everyone shhh shhh be good my mom’s here shhhhh
But it’s no fun reading it if everyone’s good!
omg everyone shhhh Sara’s Mom’s got spears in her garage shhhh
Britney, or Jamie Lynn?
No, Jamie Bill (their horrendously disfigured older brother who wasn’t cut out for show business).
“Frig is not included in the sale”
I should hope not! Filthy devils.
To me, a person born in the 60s, this is much less “groovy time capsule” and much more “being held together by decades of horrible-smelling, gross, greasy cigarette smoke DO NOT WANT”.
See-through spiral staircases with low metal railings are the creation of Satan.
“Frig is not included in the sale”…
Of course not! The one that IS included is either Harvest Gold or Avocado, it’s in the “expansion room”..
Sunken living rooms are awesome! other than that the place would make a good museum for the “preservation of pop culture as reflected in design ideas dating from 1974 to 1978″ Other than that, ya pretty much a gut the interior project… (except for the sunken living room which is awesome, just needs restyling)
I looked at a short sale house that had a sunken living room, right in front of a fireplace. The entire wall around the fireplace was compeletly covered in gold vein mirror. It had built in seating too, covered in orange shag carpet. I sooo wanted that house! Like this house it had a lot of potential but was so groovy I would have felt guilty tearing it all out. Happily, sanity returned and I didn’t go for it..
Am I the only one who LIKES this place? I wouldn’t want to live there as is, mind you, but I like the looks of the place, and the layout. A bit of de-shagging and paint will work wonders.
Don’t forget to check out the additional pictures!
http://picasaweb.google.com/rickmarinoshow/840Stirrup?feat=directlink#
That’s one heck of a big monitor at the kitchen desk – so it’s not completely a 70s experience, I guess.
I do want to know what’s in the space behind the twin yellow wall ovens, though.
Am I the only one how likes this house WITHOUT changing it? I’m 15, but I’m semi-obsessed with the 60′s! This would be the coolest thing! I always wanted to slide down the spiral staircase like Mickey Dolenz from the Monkees intro (sad, but true)!
sorry, Micky.
I wouldn’t change a thing either. I love it as is! Only additions would by my pictures (but considering most of them are posters of people like The Rat Pack and Barry Manilow they’d fit right in!) and my disco ball!
My husband’s always wanted an atrium and a spiral staircase. So, as far as the layout’s concerned, he’s sold. But in Nashville? Meh.
As far as the decorating goes, sure, all that metallic wallpaper makes one twitch now – but, as far as the 70′s were concerned, this house is done in neutrals!
I think the vintage wallpaper would look pretty cool in moderation. But . . . matching curtains? Epic yellow? WHOA.
I guarantee you, at some point in time, the bedding on the bed matched the walls and curtains!
I think what got to me (beside the flashbacks) was that all the people in the framed photographs were wearing 70s clothing, colors, and hairstyles. It’s like the 70s are looking back at you…
Some of these rooms should be in _Interior Desecrators_ by James Lileks!
The refrigerator doesn’t fit. It’s sitting in front of the cabinets. I guess they already knew they were moving when their old fridge broke down.
I sort of hope the new owners keep the ’70′s kitsch. In another 20 years, it will probably be cool again.
Yeah, is that fridge just sitting in the middle of the kitchen? How odd.
It you go look at the pictures posted on picassa (up-thread) you can see it’s not actually sitting out in the middle of the kitchen. It actually is pushed back into the space. The width probably is the same as the 70′s era fridge, but it’s depth is wider so it protrudes a bit more.
Good point about it being “cool again.” Just as we now bow down in respect of “classical” decor from the 1800s and early 20th century, someday stuff from the 70s will be antique.
please God: not the ’70s again! ANYTHING but that!
I love this type of retro kitsch. I might change some of the yellow, but I love sunken tub and living room. Besides, all this cool retro stuff is coming back in style!
Two things:
1.In the ‘Pit’, aka the sunken living room, why is there a baby TV at the foot of the big (mama?) TV?
2.With all the pictures, it seems almost possible to name the previous owner of this time capsule — and I vote for it being Tammy Wynette.
Tammy Wynette…LMAO!!!
Maybe it is her! Or somebody a little more obscure. I’ve created a profile of the seller: It’s a country singer and/or songwriter who made a lot of money in the early 70′s probably off one song in particular, after which there was some income off the song but just enough to live on, not enough to redecorate the whole house. So in all ways the owner is stuck in the past. I looked up the MLS number and gleaned the info on another site the agent is related to the seller and the listing says many songs were composed on the piano in the house. So who could it be?
Oh wow, good detective work. I had guessed that someone had gotten a large inheritance in 1973, but this is even better.
Maybe the answer is here: 1970′s One Hit Wonders
Yeah, somebody more obscure is possible, but my reasons for naming Tammy Wynette:
1.From what I can see of it, the painting over the fireplace in the Pit looks like her, and the ‘ego wall’ photos would work for her too.
2.Most of her hits were back in the ’70s.
3.Sure, she made a boatload of money, but she had lousy money-management skills and/or people, and skated near bankruptcy a lot.
4.This just looks to me more like a woman’s than a man’s house; the Pit is the one mannish area, which would be the temporary territory of her 4th or 5th (or whatever number she was up to!) husband.
When I was a kid in mid-1970s, my sister had a friend who actually lived in the house that Tammy Wynette and George Jones had owned before their divorce. It was a fabulous late 1960s-early 1970s flat-roofed, huge contemporary way up on top of a hill in the Forest Hills section of Nashville. The driveway was a serpentine affair that more than 1/3 of a mile long. The only thing I remember about the house is that it had a carpeted kitchen — the first one I’d ever seen.
Gotta add a follow up because I just saw it has a WET BAR! How cool is that?!?!?!
I’ve been reading and really enjoying the older posts, trying to catch up to the current listings. I finally had to post, but after I submitted my comment, I realized that I submitted on an early April ’09 post. Since I’d like to thank Sara and everybody else who posts here for all the laughs, I decided to re-post on today’s listing so you could actually see it. Thank you all!
Oh, and Stuart? I think I love you.
I grew sideburns just seeing this.
I grew Farrah Fawcett wings.
If this was in Maryland, no joke, I would beg for this house. I LOVE IT!! I WANT IT!!! I MUST HAVE IT!!!!
I’d dress appropriately, too, in my high waist, wide leg trousers, and my ruffle necked blouses. I would ROCK the 70′s if I owned this house!!!
1000 generations of dust mites, yours for the asking.
I love the picture of the entry-way where there is no caption whatsoever. They tried so hard with all the other photographs to put a positive spin on it and there, they were just stumped.
“Whee. Arches. Random architectural details abound here!”
I live in the Nashville area and I’ve seen a lot of houses like this. The interesting this is, they’re completely spotless. They are preserved at the moment of their building by fastidious vacuuming of the shag carpet. This house is not that uncommon in the Bellvue area of Nashville (where the house is) nor in the smaller surrounding towns.
The only thing this house might smell like is bacon. Old southern ladies have to keep bacon grease. I don’t know why. All I know is it makes their house smell like The Cracker Barrel.
Those are the kinds of communities I love to attend open houses in, Meg. Must be fun. But help me, I can’t believe I fit the description of an old lady in Nashville. I am only 42 years old, haven’t lived in the South since I was 24, and I keep bacon grease in case I want it as an ingredient. (You can freeze it you know). Thankfully we don’t cook bacon very often so our house doesn’t smell of it.
Ugh, bacon grease!
My dad often pops his popcorn in bacon fat. He’s clever like that — he gets to have the whole bowl to himself.
I’m 26 and I rarely cook bacon… but I did it Saturday morning. And then I got a coffee cup down, poured the bacon grease into it, and was about to stick it in the freezer when my fiance came and asked me what I was doing. I didn’t have an answer. I handed him the cup and asked him to dispose of the grease for me.
I narrowly avoided going down the slippery slope of old southern lady. Jeanee, it starts with saving bacon grease. It ends with a rebel-flag fleece blanket and a tight perm making your hair look like a pube-helmet. If you find yourself looking at little glass statues of Cherokee Indians or anything that describes itself as “commemorative confederate memorabilia” it’s too late for you. I’m sorry.
It sounds like you might have gotten out of the South early enough, though. There’s always hope.
Dude! The yellow bedroom has SLIDING GLASS DOORS! That lead to the INSIDE of the house! Nothing says “privacy” like rubber-backed goldenrod polyester and single-paned glass. And nothing would jazz up a party at the wet bar more than forgetting to close those rubber-backed goldenrod polyester curtains…
It opens into the atrium. Yes, the house has an indoor greenhouse in it with trees.
So what’s up with the white eyelet bedding? What happened to the bedspread to match the wallpaper and window treatments? I’m extremely disappointed in that bedroom!
I think all that matching caused a miniature black hole that swallowed the bedding. It was for the best, really. Any more of that pattern and the whole house could’ve disappeared, much like in Poltergeist.
I actually think that house is beautiful. Today’s homes are all decorated with black and “stainless” steel and look like crap. If I had the money I’d buy that place in a heartbeat. My disco ball (yes, I really do own one) would look great in there!
I’m with you. I’m 32, and live in a major metropolitan area, and I do not fit in around here! Black is too dark and stainless looks too industrial. I don’t have a disco ball, and there are a few things I’d need to change about this house if it was mine, but it is pretty dang cool!
There’s industrial and then there’s the fake wannabe Eames crap that everyone’s building right now. I think the main problem with contemporary design is that it’s just too damn cynical. “Hey, you kids like boxy ‘modern’ crap right? And things called ‘lofts’? Well here, buy this thing. It’s modern!”
Not to mention that stainless steel is SO HARD to keep clean! It shows every single finger print and drop of water. You have to be cleaning constantly to keep it looking nice.
Houses should reflect the individual personality of the owners. My folks just had theirs remodeled. We live on the west coast where that ugly “South Western” look is popular – along with Spanish and Tuscan. Mom went for New England look. People freaked at seeing an actual white house amongst all the sand colored monstrosities.
“Guess I’ll go for a walk outside now, the summer sun’s callin’ my name, I hear you now”…
This is EPIC! Would make a few changes… but so much I’d leave. The mirrored wallpaper in the bathroom… classic. And, seriously – an almost 4000sqft house that has 3-bed PLUS Den, PLUS Rec room PLUS separate dining room PLUS a yard for under $300,000??!!??!! I’d deal with the shag for a while. I need to live in another city…
There’s some potential here, but there’s also a lot that needs changing. The spiral staircase is cute, but like others have said- it’d get really old after a while. What if you got hurt or were suddenly unable to go up the stairs? There’d be a whole half of the house you couldn’t get to, not to mention that spiral staircases can get rickety as all get out.
The main things I’d change would be replacing the staircase somehow & replacing the wallpaper. The carpets would come next, but the staircase & wallpaper would be the first things to go.
In a house that big, there ought to be a corner to tuck a one-person elevator into.
I know this floor pattern.. it’s the same floorplan my best friend (mid 70′s to mid 80′s) lived in.. the decorations are different (obviously) but this brings back so many memories….. wow
It looks like classic So.Calif. nouveau riche abode.
The yellow bedroom caption is, ‘”Vacation at home” takes on a whole new meaning!’
Yes, you’ll think you’re at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo.
Groovy, baby. Groooovy.
Anyone else reminded of Three’s Company?
By the way, how do you clean that sunken tub? We’ve got a “garden tub” which involves a lot of leaning into it and bracing my thighs against the side to read the opposite side of the tub.
I’m stumped on how you’d clean that puppy. Lie flat on the floor? I’m being dead serious, how in the world do you scrub out the bottom? Just clamber on in there with the cleaning products?
We had one growing up (in the bathroom with the brown shag carpet) and we just crawled in and cleaned. Looking at it now with my 40+ year old knees, I have to admit I’d have to get more creative. Perhaps sit on the edge of the tub and clean around me saving the last bit until the end.
C’mon, you buy a pool vacuum, fill the tub up, and let the sucker roam around in there! Silly, like you had to ask.
Aha! And we even have a vacuum for our pool! Clearly I lack creative problem solving skills
Thanks XJ.
Thanks Laurie, I was staring at that and thinking, “Uh…scrubbing bubbles? You attach the sponges to your feet, and then clog dance around in the tub? What the heck?”
Turns out I wasn’t as far off as I thought!
WOW! Maybe it’s because I love the ’60s (though I realize this is from the ’70s), but I absolutely love this house. I can’t even lie. I definitely would not keep it as it is, but if I had money and lived in Nashville, I would buy it and update a lot of it. New carpet, new wallpaper, that kind of thing. The house itself is very, very cool – it’s just the decor that’s pretty bad for 2010.
Hmm…the house is much bigger, but the furniture, the accessories, the dark walnut cabinet finishes, even the potted plants … (your crotons, your corn plants, and those awful prehistoric spiky things)…these photos take me right back to my parents’ house during my middle/high school years. Hey! That was our dining room suite–I’m sure of it. And that awful tufted armchair…I recognize that! And the bedroom furniture looks painfully familiar, too. That’s it; I’m sending my folks to get their stuff back. They’ll be the irritable elderly couple with the moving truck and a box of Swiffer refills.
My aunt, who lived in Nashville and was friends with many country music stars, believes it was Tammy Wynette’s house. That does look like her in the picture above the fireplace in the sunken living room.
I looked up the tax record and it’s not in Tammy Wynette’s name. Looks like the owner has been there since the mid 1970′s … Shrug. Just seems to be an older neighborhood with pretty great views of the downtown area…
yeah, but if you’re a star, and not living in some gated & locked community, wouldn’t it be a good idea to have your house in another name? I mean, there’ve ALWAYS been crazy stalker fans: having the house in some name other than your own might be an added layer of protection.
My first thought was that Kim, from The Housewives of Atlanta, would totally love this house. It looks like her, all big and blond, flashy and trashy.
I totally want this house. It would make me laugh every day.
Hi folks, I looked up the address on the county assessor’s site, and the actual address of the house is 701 Stirrup Ct. Follow link of my nick, which leads to the assessor’s page.
Have no idea who the owner is/was or might be related to.
Actually spiral staircases CAN be dangerous. My sil fell while climbing down a set of them just 3 months ago.. She hit her head and suffered a skull fracture and hematoma. She required emergency surgery to relieve brain swelling. Fortunately someone was with her at the time, or it could have been tragic.
I haven’t ever fallen down a spiral staircase, but no joke, most folks fell into the living room pits. Unless it has the groovy metal railing around it, it is really easy to back into it. It just isn’t as far a fall as the staircase.
Heh… I like it. Who woulda thought a place like that is about 10min from my house lol
Sort of a cross between my parents’ house (where my old bedroom had apple green shag carpeting until 2 years ago) and Graceland. I love it … but it reminds me of the family home in “The Virgin Suicides” a bit too much.
Okay for everyone who wondered who’s house it was….. the additional pictures are in a web album attributed to Rick Marino…. an Elvis impersonator.
Here’s the link
http://www.ladyluckmusic.com/radio/etaspotlight/rickmarino/
Well, if it’s not Tammy Wynette (darn!) then an Elvis-impersonator with a massive ego will do just fine….. good lord, now I’m picturing him working his way from the piano, down the shag-covered spiral staircase…. now he’s in the atrium: sequins flashing, lips twitching, hips grinding…..
now I’m gonna go hide under my bed…..
Sorry . . . wrong Rick Marino. I believe the one in question is the local radio personality turned real estate agent, which would explain why the picasa link shows 7 different homes. (Just click on ‘Rick Marino’s Gallery’ at the top.) Unfortunately, while he takes excessive amounts of pics of each one, none of them are nearly as lovely as the ’70′s time capsule!
http://www.nashville.net/profile/RickMarino
Plus the Elvis Rick Marino says he lives in Florida.
I have stayed in a house just like this before! It was a rather old house, but aside from the creepy dead spiders that turned up everywhere (we knocked about 30 of them from the ceiling when we were playing basketball) it was actually pretty cool. =D
Vikavid, I KNEW IT! I was just about to post saying that this was surely either Graceland or a tribute to Graceland. It’s the shag carpet that gives it away.
Someone else said they thought the house would smell like bacon. I disagree. I think it smells like swingers. Oh, they may not be swingers now, but back in the day, definitely swingers. I live in Nashville. I think I am going to offer them $195,000 and see if it sticks. That price would leave me plenty of money to get rid of the the old swinger smell. I might even have enough left over to buy a new fridge!
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who likes it! It’s only a couple of hours from me too, where can I find the actual listing?
Click on “Found by” at the end of the post, amocksun.
You know – I know we’re supposed to hate this – but I think this place rocks!
I’d scoop it up in heartbeat and wouldn’t change a thing!
I love this house!As frightening as it is I think I will save this for ideas when I build my own house.
“You won’t get caught out in the rain with this covered enrty. Coming inside through the double wood doors get ready to say, “WOW”!”*
Truer words were never spoken, were they?
*text underneath the first foto on the site.
I love LOVE the sunken living room.
Hi all! I am the listing agent, yes related to the seller. Tammy Wynette was part of our family. This house is an amazing find and ready for you to buy now. Look it upon realtor.com. The address on tax records will be incorrect as it is a corner lot and tax records show it facing the other street. Better hurry someone really wnats it!
Oh yeah, new price!
The first photo made me wonder if they have a large number of ill felines, as I have never known a cat so sick it could vomit on every single square inch of carpeting. But then I saw the rest of the photos and realized…
So nobody here thinks of eating magical pepperoni pizza with mushrooms in this place? I would also invite the oompa loompa to rent out a few rooms and the downstairs.
I believe the “small beige thing” is a home trash compactor, which was the trendy kitchen appliance about the time this house was built. The theory was that you could use it to compress a week’s worth of trash into a small, neat cube that would astonish the trash haulers and strike envy in your neighbors. I remember a lot of my parents’ friends getting them – and then, after 2 years and several service calls later, giving up on them as functional and simply using them as a pull-out trash container. Not sure you can even buy one now…*googling*
Whaddya know…turns out you still can buy a trash compactor, but it’ll cost about $450 (and up, and up).