Patsy Cline
Aug 15, 2011
Fans of Country great Patsy Cline can now visit the singer's once run-down home in Winchester, Virginia. The Patsy Cline Historic House opened on August 2nd after being restored by a nonprofit corporation, Celebrating Patsy Cline Inc., which purchased and renovated the home Patsy lived in from 1948 until 1957. Patsy lived there when she signed her first record deal and made her Grand Ole Opry debut.
It cost about $100,000 to renovate the home and equip it with appliances and furniture to replicate the way it looked when Cline lived there. Only a few items are the originals from the home. Visitors are able to visit the living room, dining room, kitchen and the bedroom upstairs that was shared by Patsy, her mother and siblings.
"The fact that her music seems timeless brings a whole new group in every generation that keeps her alive," her daughter, Julie Fudge, told the Associated Press in an interview. "Her career was a small amount of years, and she had lots of accolades, but I don't think she imagined the things that would come after she died."
"There's no museum for her, so this is the actual place that she lived the longest in her short life," said Douglas Gomery, a Patsy Cline biographer and historian of Celebrating Patsy Cline. "She really made the transition from amateur singer to professional singer when she lived there."
The home opened on August 2nd but the official grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony will take place Labor Day weekend, which is when the Patsy Cline Fan Club has its annual gathering.
Check out more on the house at http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=14163836. For more on Patsy Cline, visit www.patsycline.com.
By Karen Goodner
