• September 09, 2009

Gretchen Wilson: a View from the Porch

By Kay West, Kristen Mascia

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From PEOPLE Magazine

Every morning before dawn, Gretchen Wilson pads to her front porch with a steaming cup of black coffee, sits in her wicker chair with the comfy cushions and listens for pounding hoof-beats. "They let the mares out of the barn, and when they come running by," she says, "it's so beautiful. It's my time—my calm before the storm."

Here on twisty Tater Peeler Road in rural Lebanon, Tenn., sits Wilson's "sanctuary": a three-story, 4,000-sq.-ft. log home situated on 375 acres of farmland. Purchased in increments since 2005, the property features three houses (a studio and two homes Wilson built for relatives) and a working farm, where she tends 20 horses, five chickens, a wild pig and a rooster and picks fresh strawberries with daughter Grace, 8. "People ask me where I go to get away, and I say, 'Home,' " says the singer, 36. "I can see being here the rest of my life."