Death of American icon Dolly Parton brings mourners to her former Solvang house

By Mike Chaldu · Mon Aug 31 2026

Country music legend owned property on corner of Alisal Road and Maple Avenue from 2004-14

The Aug. 25 death of country music queen, American icon, and rhinestone-clad superstar Dolly Parton in Nashville was felt in Solvang, more specifically the house of the corner of Alisal Road and Maple Avenue that she once owned.

Parton, who died Tuesday, Aug. 25, in Nashville at age 80, was said to have owned the house from 2004 to 2014, according to a story posted June 16 on Realtor.com.

Two tell-tale symbols of Parton's presence at the house include a small stained-glass window that show the name "Dolly," and her trademark butterfly, and a sign on the picket fence declaring it "former home of Dolly Parton: singer, actress, and American icon." Several flower bouquets and messages were sitting around the sign on Thursday, Aug. 27.

Real estate broker Cris Lapp is the current owner of the house and operates his business, Black Oak Homes & Mortgages, out of the residence. Parton sold the house to her next-door neighbor in Solvang, and Lapp bought the house from the neighbor in 2022.

"I was poking around the area and found this house and decided to purchase it, and I didn't even know she once owned it," Lapp said. "About halfway through escrow, I heard it was once hers, but the titles were scrubbed, which happens with celebrities. However, we were able to look at the past permits and we saw her name."

Once he purchased the house, Lapp said he could see signs that Parton was in the house. Among other things, his office used to be Dolly's "wig room."

"There also was some pretty tight security in that house," Lapp continued. "There was a super-heavy security door that I think weighed about 350 pounds. I had it replaced and it took three people to get it out of the house."

Lapp said Parton would come to Solvang to stay at the house periodically.

"The neighbor said he could tell when she was on her way, because the caretaker would start sprucing up the yard, and replacing the flowers," he said.

There was also one other things, according to Lapp: deliveries of Spam.

"The neighbor would see a bunch of cases of the stuff show up at her door; apparently she loved Spam," he said. "In fact, when I bought the place, I could still smell the Spam sent when I first moved in."

Lapp said he heard that Parton wouldn't venture into town to often, although people said she would go to the Ace Hardware on Mission Drive frequently when she was in town.

At the moment, Lapp has the house up for sale, asking $2 million for it, after paying $1.35 million to purchase it in 2022. The property contains the main house, with two rental units in the back, and its own small windmill in the front yard.

"I'm retiring soon, so I figured it's time to sell it," he said. "I do get phone calls about the place, but a lot of time it's just people wanting a tour of the house."

Ultimately, Lapp said he enjoyed owning the building that gave him a small connection to celebrity.

"I was just really said when I heard she passed," he said. "Everybody had a good thing to say about her, and being here made me feel like I kind of lived with her."

Parton, who grew up in the poverty of Appalachia, became larger than life with her outsized personality, humor, songbird voice, and talent for writing songs that touched generations. Some of her hits include “Coat of Many Colors,” “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” “Jolene,” and her signature song “I Will Always Love You,” which blew up on the charts again years after its initial release when it was covered by Whitney Houston for the 1992 film “The Bodyguard.” Parton conquered the country music charts; television, in hosting her own show; and movies, with starring roles in the smash hit “9 to 5,” in which she wrote the hit title song and “Steel Magnolias.” She transcended media when she opened her eponymous Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, near her humble roots in the Smokey Mountains. She was born in 1946, the fourth of 12 children, into a family so poor they had no plumbing or electricity. With her accolades and success, she was especially active in extensive philanthropy, giving away more than 270 million children’s books, providing scholarships to underserved students, funding disaster relief in Tennessee, and donating $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for COVID-19 vaccine research. Parton’s popularity only seemed to rise in recent years especially due to her generosity. She remained in the public eye despite the loss of her husband of nearly six decades, Carl Dean, just last year.