Skip to Main Content

Guitar building.

Grand Guitar (Gone)

Field review by the editors.

Bristol, Tennessee

According to his family, Joe Morrell had dreamed for years of building a building shaped like a giant guitar. He was in the country music business, manufacturing dulcimers, running a record shop, even performing under the name Herbie Hootenauger. He envisioned the "Grand Guitar" as a gateway between the interstate and his hometown of Bristol, Tennessee, the self-proclaimed Birthplace of Country Music. On May 13, 1983, it opened to the public.

Guitar building.

"I've always thought, why would anyone stop at a square building that looked like every other building?" he told the Sullivan County News at the time. "I have a lot of crazy ideas."

The guitar was definitely not like any other building. Seventy feet long and three stories tall, it was painted to resemble a Martin Dreadnought acoustic guitar (Morrell's personal favorite) and was accented with a gargantuan saddle bridge, sound hole, pick guard, finger board, turning keys, and strings. Inside, the building housed a gift shop, a recording studio, a country music AM radio station, and Morrell's personal collection of hundreds of musical instruments, including one made of matchsticks, another shaped like a pig, and a third made from a dead armadillo.

Grand Guitar appeared in National Geographic in 1985, and in 2014 was added to the National Register of Historic Places. But by then Joe Morrell was dead, and the building had been abandoned for years, its paint faded and peeling, its nylon strings broken and sagging. It was purchased by a developer who'd built a shopping plaza -- which he called a "a multi-faceted shopping experience" -- across the interstate, and who vowed to restore Grand Guitar. But years passed and the building remained empty and forlorn. If it could play a country music song, it would have been a sad one.

The developer had Grand Guitar torn down on August 16, 2019.

Grand Guitar

Directions:
I-81 exit 74A. Drive east on US Hwy 11W for a half-mile. You'll see the guitar on the left.
Hours:
Aug. 16, 2019: Torn down.
Status:
Gone

More Quirky Attractions in Tennessee

Stories, reports and tips on tourist attractions and odd sights in Tennessee.

Explore Thousands of Unique Roadside Landmarks!

Strange and amusing destinations in the US and Canada are our specialty. Start here.
Use RoadsideAmerica.com's Attraction Maps to plan your next road trip.

My Sights

My Sights on Roadside America

Create Your Own Bizarre Road Trips! ...Try My Sights

Mobile Apps

Roadside America app: iPhone, iPad Roadside America app for iPhone, iPad. On-route maps, 1,000s of photos, special research targets! ...More

Roadside Presidents app: iPhone, iPad Roadside Presidents app for iPhone, iPad. POTUS landmarks, oddities. ...More

Tennessee Latest Tips and Stories

Latest Visitor Tips

Sight of the Week

Sight of the Week

Easter Island Moai in America (Mar 25-31, 2024)

SotW Archive

USA and Canada Tips and Stories

More Sightings