LOCATION: Nashville, TN
PRICE: $1,679,900
SIZE: 7,971 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: After a series of covert communiques over the last two weeks from three well-informed and ever-so-helpful real estate tattle tales down in the country music capital of Nashville, Your Mama is finally getting around to discuss the Brentwood, TN mini-mansion owned by pop-country Rascal Flats guitarist Joe Don Rooney and recently listed with an unnecessarily complicated $1,679,900 price tag. Let's just call this kitty a cat and say it's listed at $1,680,000, shall we?
Anyhoo, property records indicate Mister Rooney and his beauty queen turned t.v. hostess wife Tiffany Fallon—a former Miss Georgia (2001) who went on to pose in her birthday suit for Playboy and was named Playmate of the Year in 2006—scooped up the stately, vaguely Greek Revival pile in October 2007 for $1,575,000.
A tree-shaded circular driveway bends up and around to the front of the imposing and pleasantly dour brick-built residence that's situated on almost three-quarters of an acre in an affluent, guard-gated golf course community about 18 miles due south of downtown Nashville.
Combined, the three livable levels encompass a spacious but hardly Brobdingnagian 7,971 square feet of professionally decorated (and mostly taupe, putty and beige colored) interior space that were all done up and worked over by the much-published decoratin' dynamos at the top-shelf firm McAlpine Booth & Ferrier Interiors. Mister and Missus Rooney themselves described their day-core in a November 2009 article in People as "very un-Nashville" and "Classy casual." The lazy and the infirm will appreciate the mini-manse's elevator that makes stops on all three floors of Mister and Missus Rooney's residence that listing details show has a total of 4 bedrooms and 4 full and 2 half bathrooms
An anemic portico protects the side-lighted front door that opens into a grand, wood-floored double-height entrance hall flanked by a formal dining room to the left and, on the right, through fifteen-pane French doors, a small paneled study with a coffered ceiling, the first of the home's five fireplaces and built-in shelves where some of Mister Rooney's scads of industry award statuettes are displayed.* The mocha-stained wood floors in the entrance hall extend throughout most of the main floor including into the dining room and the voluminous formal living room with an extra high ceiling, fireplace number two, a walk-in wet bar and a trio of towering arched windows that swing open to an expansive entertainment terrace and swimming pool.
The main floor master suite, well if a wee bit awkwardly situated for privacy just off the formal living room, has yet another fireplace plus a walk-through closet/dressing room with his and her sides separated by floor-to-ceiling drapery. The master bathroom offers a pair vanities—one L-shaped with a make up station, two cabinets for linen and toiletry storage, a spa tub and separate glassed in shower stall and a fully enclosed crapper cubicle.
The three guest/family bedrooms on the upper level are easily accessed by the elevator, the main stairs in the entrance hall and/or the back stairs in the family room. Each of the bedrooms has a roomy walk-in closet and a private attached bathroom. The architect for this house was clever—and smart—not to have any of the bedrooms share walls, a situation that ensures private and peaceful slumber and—ahem—what have you.
In the aforementioned 2009 People article Mister and Missus Rooney described the fully finished and, as far as we can tell, entirely or at least essentially windowless basement as "Man Land," a designation that is arguably better than the ubiquitous and upsetting term "man cave" but none-the-less still sends chilling shivers of mortification up and down Your Mama's spine.
In addition to the 600+ square foot recreation/media room—complete with pool table, fifth fireplace and an adjoining wet bar/kitchenette—Mister Rooney's so-called Man Land also includes garage space with direct entry for five cars, a soundproofed state-of-the-art recording studio, a nearly 30 foot long exercise room and a space labeled on the floor plan as a "salon/flex room." Does this indicate that Mister and Missus Rooney installed a private hair and make up salon in their Man Land? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?
Tucked into the corner between the living room and the family room there's a screened porch (with heating) that leads out to a massive slate terrace that continues on to surrounds the swimming pool. At the far end of the swimming pool a series of tree-ringed stacked stone walls not only provide the perfect spot for an elevated spa but provide visual privacy from the looky-loo golfers as they make their way long the greens and fairways of the private Governor's Club golf course.
As far as Your Mama knows for our research on the internets both of the other members of Rascal Flats also maintain substantial homes in the Nashville area. Lead vocalist Gary LeVox owns a 22-room resident with 11,260 square feet that's located in the same small gated enclave where some of the other residents include Kix Brooks and Joe Galante.
Country music's most committed flat-iron aficionado Keith Urban and his porcelain-skinned Aussie actress wife Nicole Kidman used to live directly across the street from Mister LeVox until they acquired a larger and more opulent mansion in the same swanky gated enclave where some of the other homes are owned by unlucky in love country music super nova Taylor Swift and, as it turns out, multi-talented Rascal Flats bass guitarist and harmony vocalist Jay DeMarcus and his former Miss Tennessee wife Allison Alderson. Mister and Missus DeMarcus picked up their nearly 11,000 square foot behemoth back in August 2007 for $2,725,000 but, bless their real estate hearts, still own another Nashville white elephant they've been trying to unload since 2008. More on that shortly...
*The many awards and accolades of Rascal Flats include a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, six Academy of Country Music Awards (plus an ACM Home Depot Humanitarian Award), five American Music Awards, six CMT Music Awards, six Country Music Association Awards (plus a Horizon Award), five People's Choice Awards, one Radio Music Award and one Grammy Award for Best Country Song (Bless the Broken Road, 2006) plus five more nominations.
listing photos and floor plan: Fridrich & Clark Realty