Fontanel Mansion and Farm

Barbara Mandrell is an icon in the country music business and she and her husband just wanted a house that would blend in and no stand out but become of it. They worked with the architects, came up with the idea of the Fontanel project.

My mom designed the home along with Sea Tuck, the architect. He also did the Hall of Fame, the Symphony hall, and many many many beautiful buildings in Nashville and around the country. When my parents sold the place in 2002, I never thought that I would get to be back in my old home that I grew up in everyday, although they had nothing to do with the venture of Fontanel as it is today, they’re definitely still here. When the visitors come here, what they are going to see is a home. They’re not going to see a museum, theyr’e going to see a place wher ethey’re welcome in as guest they are encouraged to sit down on the furniture, hang out, they get to listen to the stories of my family when we lived here and also the new stories of after my family moved out.

We were fixing to present the mansion to the public, and showcase memorobilia and everyone was going to see every facet of the home, and we knew that we had to create a secure building and property. We needed to hide systems both burglar and fire systems. So that was a challenge in and of itself, designing a system that gave us full coverage but didn’t look like we’d put in a big aftermarket security system.

When you come to Fontanel, youd rive right up to the door, and see a beautiful home that was build very tastefully and lovingly. And we want to continue with that theme, and in doing so there was only one way we could continue with that theme. And the nly way to continue was it had ot be wireless, you cannot in a structure like this have a lot of conduit and a lot of wires story. We had to monitor our fire systems which are upgraded and we had to secure the facility. ADS had to work with me everyday and we had to help solve issues on a daily basis, cause there were many. As far as the fire alarm is concerned we had the pull stations and we of course we have have the wireless receivers and the wireless repeaters to make it work. Youc an imagine trying to get through logs, and we’re talking about logs that are sequoia logs. Logs that are 22 inches in diameter. Even though it’s a wireless pull station you still ahve to mount them on a surface that is something our guys have never worked with.

At Fontanel mansion we have over 20 exterior doors alone, and you have to structure brick under most of them. It was not going to work like I thought. That’s when MJ suggested we run only a few door sensors but lots of motion detectors. And so we have a lot of wireles motion detectors in every aspect of the house, and it covers all the doors.

ADS came through and we gave them a project that is asthetically pleasing that works, and is somethign tthat they and we can be proud of.

We have a good relationship with ADS, and I feel confident that if we built 16 more structures on properties they would be involved in every one of them.

So when I think of the future here I just want to see people enjoy it and love it like I did, like I do.