Private & secluded! Spectacular home featuring over 5400 sq ft, panoramic views, spacious bedrooms, hobby rooms, 3 full & 1 half baths, library, exercise room, game room and in ground pool Property includes 2 other homes:1426+- sq. ft farm house & 810+- sq ft cabin w/2 story stone fireplace, all new flooring, gorgeous front porch, all sitting on 252+- acres, 10 ponds, creek, barns & storage buildings, only 5 minutes from I24 – wide creek year around, caves and several springs on site! Won’t find a location like this anywhere else.
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A Letter to Future Owners from the Current Owners
PERSONAL NOTES ABOUT OUR BELOVED GLENDALOUGH
Welcome to Glendalough! “Glen” means land in the native Irish tongue. Lough means lake or water. Your future home sits atop a hill that is nestled between streams, ponds and creeks and has a similar topography to the sacred land m Ireland.
Our home between the waters was named after the historical Glendalough where monks lived in the 15th Century. There the monks and the seekers who trusted them, would be safe from intruders by filling stone towers with food and water so that when persecutors attacked the monks could climb up a rope ladder and stay until their enemies left.
After visiting Ireland in 1990 and seeing the original Glendalough, my former husband and I were struck with the similarities in the landscape and named our home in honor of the beautiful original. Our friend, Irish singer Sandy Kelly, brought water from the lakes of Glendalough and together we poured out the blessings from those waters into our ponds on the property.
Our “house that music built” has had many illustrious visitors because my former husband and I were both in the music industry. Ricky Van Shelton, Dolly Parton, and Melissa Manchester are just a few who have spent time with us here. The beige bathroom on the top floor was a wedding gift from Naomi Judd and her husband, Larry Strickland.
My former husband was an extremely successful music producer and I was a singer-songwriter in Nashville when we bought the hill on which we built our beloved home. In March of 1991, we stood right where our house stands now and looked out over the valley below. As the wind blew gently up the hill to welcome us, the sun began to set in the west casting long, brilliant rays of light out over the land. We looked at one another and whispered, “This is it … ” I remember the gratitude and joy because I’d found my little piece of heaven on earth. A few weeks later when we signed the closing papers, a rainbow filled the sky beyond the hill after a crisp, cool Spring rain. I knew I’d found home.
We designed every single thing about our home and hired trustworthy Mennonite craftsmen to build it. They worked for a year and as they did I often brought homemade cookies to them and enjoyed the hymns they sang while they worked. Our contractor, William Shrock, and his family are friends of mine to this day.
As you might imagine, we hosted many holidays and special events here at Glendalough. Designed so our friends and family could read, rest, hike, swim, bird watch and bike -we hoped our loved ones would be refreshed by nature and all it’s blessings. I made sure we had numerous windows and tall sliding doors –facing both west and east-so that all who entered might be able to see the changing seasons and incredible views all year long.
People have often commented about how few bugs we have -it’s true! That’s because we encourage Bluebirds, Fly Catchers, Swallows. Hummingbirds and Chimney Swifts (some of which fly from South America) to come to our farm every Spring. We provide dozens of birdhouses, numerous hummingbird feeders, and allow our Chimney Swifts to stay In our chimney In the library for the summer. The Swifts arrive around mid-March to keep our chimney clean and clear. No, they don’t come Inside. They simply fly In and out of the chimney and circle the house for an hour on end, eating mosquitos, gnats and other little flying bugs.
They’ve been coming for the past 27 years and we hope you’ll continue to welcome them. In return, they will bless your life and you will, as we did, look forward to their return every Spring. We haven’t sprayed any toxins for bugs or rodents on our property for many years. That means we’ve used natural methods to stop ants from entering, methods like mixing Borax with jelly or, when we want to be more aggressive, utilizing those little black traps where the ants walk in but not out In the Spring, however, every farm in our area is visited by Asian lady beetles that busily eat aphids but can be annoying.
Over time we’ve learned to vacuum up those that get inside and complain about them to our neighbors and friends. I love everything at Glendalough, except these pesky, Asian beetles. They aren’t dangerous in any way but they are annoying.
We’ve enjoyed deer in our yard, possums, raccoons, over 100 species of birds, white-nosed squirrels, chip-monks, hawks, Great Blue Herons, lots of turtles, salamanders, and other precious wildlife. the sunsets from your porches will be spectacular.
The meals in your kitchen will be filled with laughter and healthy food. Your evenings in front of the fireplaces will be restful and rejuvenating. Your hikes will be adventurous and your lives will be blessed when you live here on the hill overlooking the spectacular valley of Bedford County, Tennessee.
Whether you decide to buy our home or not, we hope you will take a bit of Glendalough with you. But if you decide to make our home your own, we hope you and yours will be blessed with good health, joyous adventure, happy memories, and many years of peace and laughter.
If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask. We want you to choose our property because you love it. We want you to stand on this very hill like we did and whisper to the wind, “This is it We’ve found home.”
With gratitude,
the owners and caregivers of Glendalough