Honky Tonk Homes For Sale

The Honky Tonk Hall of Fame is selling homes. Homes including ones once lived in by Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, among others, might be going on the bloc soon.

The organization sponsored one of its trademark eBay auctions in November, this time for homes connected with Cash and Presley. The auctions didn’t yield winning bids but phone calls and e-mails inquiring about the properties were apparently coming in after the auction ended.

Honky Tonk co-founders Stephen Shutts and Robert Reynolds agreed to the auction in hopes of preserving the properties. The organization sponsored the sale of Elvis’ Audubon Drive home in Memphis last May, which was purchased by industry vet Mike Curb for $1 million.

"We really look into it – what significant thing in their musical career happened while they lived there – and do research on the records. Probably the biggest hurdle is convincing people of the worth of something," Shutts told Pollstar. "Just because Elvis set foot in a building doesn’t mean it has the equality of a building that he stayed at for a whole year of his life.

"It’s been a lot of fun. It’s kind of opened up a new door or dimension for us with celebrity properties."

The auction included Cash’s Memphis home where he lived during his Sun Records days. The guitar-shaped mailbox still stands out front. The King’s rented house in Killeen, Texas, where he stayed during boot camp at Fort Hood is still up for grabs, too.

Shutts, a self-described "Elvis fanatic," said he and Reynolds are also looking into properties once owned by Hank Williams Jr., Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly.

"We’re kind of the ‘Indiana Jones’ of memorabilia. We love the search, we love tracking things down," he said. "What we’ve found is a niche. There really isn’t anyone else that does what we do across the board."