Charles Kelley Buys

BUYER: Charles Kelley
LOCATION: Nashville, TN
PRICE: $1,600,000
SIZE: 6,682 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Earlier we (lightly dissed and) discussed a fairly modest, white brick traditional in Nashville's Cherokee Park neighborhood recently sold by Lady Antebellum lead singer Charles Kelley for $720,000.

Let's have a quick look-see now at the much larger red brick traditional in Nashville's more upscale Belle Meade area Your Mama hears Mister Kelley and his publicist wife Cassie McConnell purchased earlier this year for $1,600,000.

Like with the Cherokee Park place, property records conceal the identity of the home's new owner with a cutesy-named trust overseen by big-time bizness manager Julie Boos. But, once again, The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial tell us the bigger Belle Mead mansion was bought in February (2012) by Mister Kelley and his missus Miz McConnell.

A low, brick wall, partially covered with some sort of ivy-like vine, runs around the corner property's long perimeter. The driveway cuts through discreet break in the wall and curves around to a tree-shielded motor court at the front of the house. The driveway continues past the motor court, down the street-side of main house and wraps around to a rear motor court and detached three car garage connected to the (e)stately main house by a short breezeway. 

The recently renovated red brick mansion was originally built in 1942, stands on 1.56 acres and measures 6,682 square feet, according to listing information and various other online documentation. Listing information teased up out of the interweb also shows the two-story traditional has 4 bedrooms and 4 full and 2 half bathrooms with additional living space in the sizable pavilion out back beyond the cement pond.

A stodgy, essentially symmetrical front façade gives way to what appear in listing photographs to be some decent and dignified spaces like the 26-foot long formal living room with fireplace, wood floors and plenty of room for a (baby) grand piano. There's also a paneled library with fireplace and a 29-foot long, sun-filled family room/den with built-in entertainment cabinetry and long walls of floor-to-ceiling French doors and windows.

The house also has a few wacky spaces. The most egregious is, of course, the discombobulating gallery at the rear of the residence into which the formal dining room juts with a pair of dorky Doric columns and a fancy-scrolled wrought iron railing. We speak with no authority whatsoever but that gawd awful gallery space looks to Your Mama like maybe it was once a covered porch enclosed in glass and fluffed up with thick moldings and marble floors. The room—more accurately described as a space, maybe—probably makes for a damn convenient traffic hub between the various nooks and crannies of the substantially-scaled house. But, seriously children, that looks like the sort of faux-eleganza Your Mama would expect to find on a middle-brow luxury cruise ship iffin we were ever to be punished by The Dr. Cooter with a "vacation" on a middle-brow luxury cruise ship. It's a workable space but it needs a full architectural and decorative face lift.

Anyhoo...the house is said to have a working elevator for exertion-free access to the second floor. We're not sure if the thing drops into the basement but, really, what good is the elevator if it doesn't descend to the 1,500-plus square foot basement where, if they're not already there, there's room to install a state-of-the-art media room and temperature-controlled wine cellar.

The second floor master suite, accessed by a long corridor lined on one side with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, encompasses a bedroom large enough to have a sitting area, French doors to private balcony, fitted dressing room big enough for a mid-level clothes horse and—a delight for sure for those who believe keeping some of life's ugliest but necessary rituals private is the first key to a successful long-term relationship—a pair of bathrooms.

The breezeway that connects the garage to the mansion opens into an unexpectedly grand rear entrance hall with tile floor, double height ceiling and curved staircase with wood treads and wrought iron banisters.

Manicured gardens and brick paths weave and arch arch around a racing track-shaped lawn that slopes gently down to a wide terrace that completely surrounds an rectangular swimming pool. Behind the swimming pool, an unexpectedly formal, mansard-roofed pool pavilion invites shade-seekers with a deep covered porch lined with a whole bunch of Doric columns that make better sense in this context than the ones in the bizarre prow of the formal dining room.

Inside the pool pavilion, as best as we can tell, there's a sky-lit living/dining area with fireplace and hexagonal tile floor, an adjoining (clean but dated) kitchen(ette) and at least one bathroom. There may (or may not) be one or possibly two additional sleeping spaces in the pool house convenient for in between pool paddling naps and such.

Again, we don't know a slit from a slot but Your Mama can imagine that since she/she/they signed on the deed's dotted line several months ago Mister Kelley and his missus might have coughed up a bit more cash to put a little polish on their real estate diamond so it better suits their own particular hopes, dreams, needs and tastes. We can only hope they felt an impassioned and uncontrollable compulsion to hire a smart architect and/or nice-gay or lady decorator to oversee some important alterations to the rear gallery space.

listing photos: Fridrich & Clark