Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, have been house hunting in Nashville, expressing interest in a Belle Meade home appraised at $1.2 million, sources say.
Rusty Moore, who owns the 312 Lynnwood Blvd. home, says that the house isn't officially on the market but that he and his wife have authorized neighbor and Realtor Shirley Zeitlin to show it to prospective buyers. Zeitlin, who is said to have shown the house to the Gores recently, was on vacation in the Caribbean island of St. Martin this week and couldn't be reached for comment.
"Over the last year or so, people have asked us whether we'd be willing to sell," says Moore, whose conservative, white-columned home is, according to the Davidson County Property Assessor's office, located on 2.09 acres and is said to exceed 6,000 square feet. Moore purchased the residence in 1999 for $1.15 million. "But we're not really aware of who all's looked at our home," he says, adding that Zeitlin is in charge of showing it to interested parties.
The Gores currently have homes in Arlington, Va., and in Carthage, Tenn., the site of the family farm. As vice president, Gore, Tipper and most of their children lived in a 33-room mansion on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory. The house—a rambling structure with large wraparound porch—came with the job.
Since he no longer has day-to-day obligations in Washington, Gore friends and supporters in Nashville tell the Scene they wouldn't be surprised if the couple moved back here. "I know they're spending a lot of time here," says influential Nashville Democrat Byron Trauger. Former Gore political consultant Mark McNeely says that over the last several months there's been more and more discussion about the couple spending more time here, though he says he doesn't have specific knowledge about their plans.
The Gores were in Nashville last month as the main draw for a Democratic Party fundraiser at the Renaissance Hotel, at which the former vice president said he would be spending the next several months traveling across Tennessee. "I'm meeting with friends, reconnecting with old ones and making some new ones," he said then, declining to commit to another presidential bid. "I haven't made it to all 95 counties yet, but I'm getting there."
Considered a likely Democratic candidate in the 2004 presidential race, the choice of Belle Meade as a home base from which to launch a national political race might strike some as a little strange. Republican Lamar Alexander, another former presidential candidate living in Nashville, avoided Belle Meade and chose the Whitland Avenue area when he established residency here in the mid-'90s.
But, according to one person familiar with the situation, the house is "fabulous." On top of that, it's white, with big columns out front and a large circular drive, just like a slightly better known Pennsylvania Avenue address in Washington.
