Enjoys Cape Cod Style in Tennessee
The singer downsized but still lives like a country queen
My new place is a lot smaller than the last one,” Tanya Tucker admits to Closer. But for this country legend, “downsizing” meant moving two years ago from a 30,000-square-foot house on a 500-acre Tennessee ranch to a 6,600-square-foot home on a lush 5-acre spread just a bit further south of Nashville. “I like it out here because all my horses are seven minutes down the road, there’s plenty of room for our dogs — we have a lot — and I wanted to be a little more private,” she says.
And Tanya, 58, instantly fell for the five-bedroom, fivebath Cape Cod–style house she shares with her daughter Layla, 18, son Beau, 25, and their six pups. “When Beau and I came through the front door, I loved the wood floors, the open kitchen and how the master bedroom is on the first
floor while everybody else is upstairs,” she shares. “And I really loved the gray-andwhite Cape Cod fashion of it. It reminded me of something I’d see on Martha’s Vineyard.”
There are two guest rooms for friends and her daughter Presley, 28, who lives in East Nashville, to crash in. And while there weren’t many renovations required — besides adding makeup lights in her bathroom — moving to a smaller place even as large as this one took some adjusting. “I have a 12,000-square-foot warehouse for clothes and cars and too much stuff,” she says with a laugh. “Coming from a 2,000-square-foot closet in my last house to the one here, I rotate my clothes in and out of the warehouse — and that is a job in itself!”
That’s especially true for a lady as busy as Tanya, who’s on a
North American tour, working on a new single and supporting the dog adoption charity Redemption Road Rescue (redemptionroadrescue.com). So when she needs to relax, you’ll find her and her family hanging out in the kitchen where she makes tacos, or in the nearby piano room around the beautiful Yamaha that Tanya’s dad gave her when she was 17. “Sometimes we’ll get around it and sing and play,” she shares. “It is something I’ll pass down to my kids.”
There are a few other signs of the career Tanya’s had since she scored her first hit, 1972’s “Delta Dawn,” at age 13: a platinum album of her Eagles tribute Common
Threads and a colorful portrait of her old acquaintance, Elvis Presley. (“He’s the king of rock ’n’ roll, so I had to get it!” she says.)
But you’ll see no faded roses from days gone by. Instead, she decorates with sunflowers, which mirror the gorgeous countryside out her window. “This is a beautiful area,” she smiles. “And it just feels good to relax here with my dogs and not be on a moving bus!”
— Reporting by Ilyssa Panitz