Dolly's Selling in Solvang and in Idyllwild, Too!

SELLER: Dolly Parton
LOCATION: Solvang, CA
PRICE: $950,000
SIZE: 6 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms (total)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last week we learned that seven-time Grammy-winning country music iconoclast Dolly Parton* listed her excessively countrified bungalow-cottage in the heart of West Hollywood, CA, with an asking price of almost $1.4 million.

Well, children, thanks to our dear and eerily vigilant informant Lucy Spillerguts, Your Mama has learned that the countrified cottage in West Hollywood isn't the only countrified cottage in California that the globally beloved and liberally nipped and tucked Blue Ridge Barbie doll owns and has for sale on the open market. As it turns out, Miz Parton also owns an itty-bitty compound in the high-lariously kooky and tourist-choked faux-Danish village of Solvang, CA, that's listed for $950,000. That's right, butter beans, Solvang.

A little more investigating turned up evidence that Miz Parton owns a rustic retreat in the boondocks woods of Idyllwild, CA, that—as it turns out—she also has up for sale on the open market with an asking price of $599,000. More on that property in a minute but first let's go over the place in Solvang.

There is evidence on the internets that Miz Parton has owned a place in somewhat unlikely Solvang—about two hours north and west of downtown Los Angeles—since the early 2000s but property records we peeped suggest she acquired her current hideaway in the pseudo-Danish community (via trust) in October 2007 for $1,085,000. That means, of course, even if Miz Parton's real estates manage to secure a full price sale she still faces a $135,000 hit to her bank account, not counting carrying costs, improvement expenses and real estate fees. While many might develop an angry and bleeding ulcer over losing $135,000, it's really pennies compared to the veteran country music tycoon's estimated $450 million fortune.

The picket-fenced micro-compound, just a couple short blocks from the center of Solvang's densely faux-timbered downtown, occupies a .27 acre corner parcel and includes three separate living spaces. The compact, clapboard-sided main house, according to listing details, has three bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. The cottage is jam-packed with over-sized furnishings and decoratively done up with Old-Timey lace curtains, hokey stenciled borders around doors and windows, and a downright punishable amount of fake flower sprays and faux-greenery. In the living room there's a television surmounted gas fireplace set cattywompus to room and accented with blue and white Danish tiles.

In the adjoining (and nearly claustrophobic) eat-in kitchen there are ordinary oak cabinetry topped with ordinary laminate counters and what Your Mama thinks might be the least expensive appliances money can buy.

A gated gravel driveway separates the rear of the petite main house from a roomy bunkhouse with garaging for three cars plus a ground level studio apartment. Upstairs there's a three bedroom and two bathroom guest apartment with wood stove and an eat-in kitchen finished with the similar, humble finishes and appliances as in the main house.

Each of the three living spaces has a private patio or deck. The ground level studio has a slender strip of grassy yard the main house has a fenced and gated deck area where Dolly can lounge around on her porch swing without being seen by all the clog-acquiring and pickled gherkin noshing hoi polloi that visit Solvang in droves. We are not even going to discuss the mortifying miniature windmill in the front yard because it's really just too much for Your Mama's delicate constitution to bear.

Up in the semi-remote wilds of Idyllwild, CA, high in the rugged mountains between Hemet, Banning and Palm Springs, Miz Parton owns a rustic and also decoratively countrified retreat (above) that property records show was purchased in June 2000 for $235,000 and, as mentioned above, is currently on the open market with a $599,000 price tag.

The multi-level creek side cottage has three bedrooms and three bathrooms in 1,800 square feet with a a river rock fireplace and cathedral ceiling in the living room, a raised hearth fireplace in the dining area, and, as per listing details, a "taste bud tempting kitchen" with a secondary Sub-Zero fridge. There are also "Lots of nooks and crannies for extra storage," and a spacious deck that overlooks a meandering pathway and bridge that leads down to the crick and out in to the woods. Honestly children, we just can't see Miz Parton with her suped-up wigs and stripper heels

In addition to their trio of for sale California holdings, Miz Parton and Carl Dean, her very much out-of-the-limelight husband of 45 years a vast swathe of land near Pigeon Forge, TN and large spread with a much less humbly scaled 23-room mansion near Nashville. In January (2014), presumably for use by a family member or employee, Miz Parton paid $150,000 for a recently renovated, vinyl-sided bungalow-cottage of just 875 square feet in Nashville's leafy and modest Mincy/Flatrock area (above).

*In addition to her seven Grammy's and 45 more Grammy nominations the lauded and applauded Dolly Parton can also brag about a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award along with three AMAs (plus a 18 more nominations), 7 ACMs (plus 39 more nominations), two CMTS (plus three more nominations), 9 CMAs (plus 40 more nominations), four People's Choice Awards (plus 7 more nominations) 5 Golden Globe nominations, two Tony nominations, one Emmy nomination, and two Academy Award nominations. 

listing photos (Solvang): Village Properties
listing photos (Idyllwild): Idyllwild Realty
listing photo (Nashville): Pilkerton Realtors