Johnny Cash Once Purchased Johnny Carson’s Former ‘Estate’ for Less Than $50,000
They didn’t know each other at the time, but country music legend Johnny Cash once bought a future “celebrity estate” from late-night television icon Johnny Carson for less than $50,000 in the late ’50s.
Of course, after they both became famous in their respective career tracks, the modest home’s value increased substantially. And Cash stopped for a chat with Carson on The Tonight Show in 1980, revisiting their first meeting in that home’s kitchen decades earlier while touching on the escalated value.
Johnny Carson purchased his ‘estate’ before he began hosting ‘The Tonight Show’
As Carson mentioned in his interview with Cash on The Tonight Show, he bought a home on Hayvenhurst Avenue in Encino, California, in 1955. He recalled that he paid $42,000, which he noted was “a lot of money” at the time.
It was the first home Carson had ever purchased, and he said, “I mortgaged everything I had to buy this house.” He added it wasn’t “particularly large” but was a “nice comfortable house.”
The host lived there with the first of his four wives and three young sons when he was still years short of landing his iconic Tonight Show hosting gig. At the time, he was working on a show that didn’t last, so new work eventually called him to New York. But this change left him hoping for a buyer in California.
Johnny Carson sold his ‘estate’ to Johnny Cash for less than $50,000
Carson and Cash recalled the sale and how they first met each other in that home’s kitchen. At the time, they weren’t yet aware of who the other was. While telling the story, Carson recalled asking about the home’s buyer and learning it was the “I Walk the Line” singer. He said he asked, “Who’s Johnny Cash?”
Cash added that he thought he bought the home for around $48,000 in 1958 or ’59. Notably, the value increased because the Carson family put a pool in the backyard.
“Little did we know what would happen to either one of us at that time,” Carson told Cash. They didn’t realize what their achievements would do to the value of the home they each lived in, either.
Carson mentioned it was listed as a “celebrity estate” worth $177,000 about 24 years after he purchased it. “I never thought I could afford a $177,000 house,” he declared, to which Cash agreed. As a side note, a quick look at Zillow shows a buyer would now be pressed to find a home on Hayvenhurst Avenue for less than $1 million.
Johnny Cash said a special feature drew his family to Johnny Carson’s ‘estate’
While chatting with Carson about the house, Cash shared a feature that drew his family to it. And it wasn’t the swimming pool.
At the time, they were fathers to young children. “Your boys were small, and my little girls were small,” Cash told Carson of the daughters he shared with his first wife, Vivian. He added that, for that reason, they “really liked” the cartoon characters painted on the walls in the bedroom for the children.
They each agreed that their kids loved that detail, and the home was a “nice” place to live, even if the increased value baffled them in 1980. Cash said, “You got awfully hot there and raised the price of that house,” to which Carson added, “You living there might have helped, too.”
