The property was originally built in downtown Lakeland for H.B. Carter, who made his fortune in the lumber business. Carter was well connected entertaining people like Thomas Edison and Teddy Roosevelt at the home. A subsequent owner didn’t like the downtown location and had the house moved to the outskirts of Lakeland.
After they moved in, Wynette and Jones added a guitar-shaped pool and a separate building that they planned to develop into a recording studio.
Jones wrote two hit songs, “Two Story House” and “The Grand Tour,” about the home they called the Old Plantation Music Park. It soon became a big party house with good-time friends like Johnny Cash and Charlie Pride, but some of the neighbors started to complain about the loud music and late-night carousing. The recording studio never came to be, and the couple moved away in 1972.