Patsy Cline Historic House
AP Photo/Steve Helber and AP Photo

Patsy Cline's Former Virginia Home Given National Historic Landmark Designation

The Patsy Cline Historic House, which is where young Cline lived in Winchester, Virginia while plotting her path to country music stardom, has been recognized by the National Historic Landmark program.

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Per its Facebook page, "the National Historic Landmark (NHL) program represents 2,500 landmarks designated by the Secretary of the Interior that exhibit exceptional significance in interpreting and illustrating our past and our nation's history and fall primarily outside the National Park System. An NHL may be a historic building, site, structure, object or district."

The Cline family moved into 608 South Kent Street in 1948. The future Country Music Hall of Fame member was 16 at the time. Before relocating to Nashville, becoming Loretta Lynn's bestie and recording Willie Nelson's "Crazy," Cline (born Virginia Patterson Hensley) performed in talent shows and at honk-tonks in the Washington D.C. area while living on S. Kent St.

The house has been on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register since 2005. Cline's buried a few miles from the house at Shenandoah Memorial Park, which is also home to the Patsy Cline Memorial Bell Tower.

Non-profit organization Celebrating Patsy Cline, Inc. now owns the Winchester-Frederick County home, which opened as a museum showcasing some of Cline's personal items in 2011.

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The museum's been closed due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic since July 2020, but there's plans to reopen in 2021. Before it closed temporarily, the historic site offered docent-led guided tours which lasted about 45 minutes and ended in the gift shop.

Charlie Dick, who was Cline's second husband and had lived in Winchester, once told the National Park Service that the house and the working-class neighborhood it's in had not changed since the country music singer lived there.

Now Watch: Inside Nashville's Patsy Cline Museum

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