Country Star Becca Bowen Opens the Doors to Her Vintage-Inspired Home Base
Country singer-songwriter Becca Bowen’s South Carolina home is composed of tributes to her biggest musical inspirations: her grandfather and Dolly Parton.
Both influential figures are honored in the home decor Bowen has on display inside the 1995-built Palmetto State abode that she bought in 2017.
Though Bowen’s pursuit of a career in country music led her to also secure an apartment in Nashville, TN, she tells Realtor.com® in the latest Celebrity Sanctuary that the South Carolina property keeps her connected to the place where her passion began.
“I started singing when I was 5 years old at my little home church in South Carolina, and from there, I knew I wanted to sing,” says Bowen.
Between touring with a gospel group and being cast in musicals in New York City when she was just 8, Bowen honed her craft alongside her adoring grandfather during weekends spent at his South Carolina home.
“We would go fishing and then he would cook me some chicken and rice, and we would sit in the kitchen and he would play the guitar and hum beautiful country music, and it just gave me this love for the feeling of home and family,” Bowen explains.
“He taught me a lot of life lessons, and he made the tomboy side of me come out. People started saying, ‘Oh, she’s like a country Barbie. One minute she’s dressed up in rhinestones and singing, and the next minute she’s out there with her grandpa, running around in overalls.’”
Bowen, who just released a single titled “If Grandpa Could See Me Now,” initially found fame for her fishing skills rather than her singing ability.
After a video of Bowen catching a catfish barehanded went viral, she competed on and won Season 5 of “For Love or Likes,” the Outdoor Channel’s “all-girls hunting competition” show, in 2021.
Bowen followed up her reality TV show success with the release of her debut album, “Like You’ve Never Been Loved,” in 2022 and started realizing even more of her music dreams—most notably, performing twice at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena and meeting Parton, her recording industry role model.
“Dolly was an incredible person that gave me multiple opportunities when I got to Nashville,” shares Bowen, while recalling her first encounter with the late country icon.
“I said, ‘Dolly, if you were me and you were trying to pursue a career in Nashville, what advice would you give me?’ She [looked] at me with the sweetest smile and that laugh, and she said, ‘Honey, if I was you, I’d go straight to Hollywood!’
“She had a way of making everybody she ran into feel extremely special and loved and important. After that, it opened up so many opportunities for me to be at all of her events.”
While Bowen makes sure to attend many events in Music City, including last month’s Josie Music Awards at the Grand Ole Opry, where she walked away a winner for her “Sometimes I Do” music video, she retreats to South Carolina every chance she gets.
In this edition of Celebrity Sanctuary, Bowen opens the doors to the four-bedroom, three-bathroom, nearly 3,000-square-foot brick residence she shares with her dogs Diesel and Peanut. Plus, the Nashville star points out how the scenic out-of-state oasis helps her feel grounded and inspired.
I have an apartment in Nashville, but my home base is in South Carolina because that’s where I come for my downtime, my serenity. This is where my personality is.
The persona onstage is different than the real Rebecca. Not Becca, but Rebecca. I like simplicity. I like feeling comfort and peace and quiet when I’m home.
I do live a very glamorous life when I’m traveling and singing, so I just want to feel like myself when I come home. I want to feel like that little girl that used to sit in my grandpa’s kitchen.
It is close to beautiful Lake Murray and close to fishing and all the things that I love. It’s very safe here as well, so that’s why I picked this home. It had the best of both worlds: safety and Lake Murray.
I love the look of older homes. It’s from 1995. It’s a brick home. I like it to look like meemaw’s brick home. I love the vintage-style look, so I kept everything original to what it was when I bought it. It has hardwoods and the old-school oak. Everything’s wood.
When I purchased the home, the guy who had sold it completely redid the paint and everything … so I didn’t have to change anything. When I came in here, it was everything that I wanted. It was like I had prayed about it, and God was like, “Here it is. The colors you love, everything.”
It has sage greens and creams, and I just love that.
I have a stone patio, a screened-in porch, and tons of trees back there, so it’s very welcoming and homey. I spend a lot of time out there grilling with family.
I’ll have my family over, and we’ll cook meals together in the kitchen and then sit around, watch TV, and just talk and share memories and catch up because I am gone a lot to Nashville. We always have to have something sweet. Whether it’s apple cobbler [or something else], we’re going to have some good home cooking, some comfort food here.
My kitchen has all Dolly [decor]. I have her cookbook on display and anything that I ever could find, like cookie sheets, knives, anything that was available that had butterflies from Dolly, her brand, it’s in my kitchen. I’ve collected over the years because … when I’m not in Nashville, when I come back to South Carolina, I want to walk in this door and feel the warmth of the things that I love.
When I come into my kitchen, it’s very special to me. I get up really early in the morning, and I love just having the light over the stove on. Everything’s dark in there except that little light. I’ll sit there and drink coffee and reflect on what I’m thankful for, and I’ll read my Bible or a book in the morning. That little time by myself in my kitchen, it’s so special. My home is my sanctuary, it truly is.
I would consider my living room my sanctuary because I feel like a sanctuary is where you go to find peace and comfort.
When you come into my living room, it’s all about family. I have a picture of my grandfather on my mantel of me and him fishing. When I look at that photo, it represents everything that I loved about him and loved about our time together.
It’s very cozy, very homey. It does bring aspects of the outdoors, [it] has a lot of cream colors and sage. I have lots of plants.
I have leather couches because I have animals. It makes it easier to clean. I have a real fireplace, which I absolutely adore.
I have a lot of knickknacks and vintage things. Everybody knows that I adore squirrels and owls, so no matter where I go sing or if it’s a birthday, everybody gives me little trinkets of squirrels, and they are all over my house because it makes me happy.
I keep a few guitars in here because I do write in here. One of my most special things in my living room is, my producer, Sal Oliveri, gifted me a guitar that happened to be hanging on his wall in his studio. When he moved, he gave it to me. You can see it’s been played a lot. He’s done music with Chris Stapleton, Pink—so there’s no telling who has picked up that guitar and played it. It’s rugged [and] worn down, so I keep that in my living room because I love things that don’t look brand-new.
I spend a lot of time in Nashville, but it’s extremely important for me to come back to South Carolina to my home for a mental break. I definitely need to take time for myself. Even if I’m traveling, no matter where I’m at, I will come back every two weeks at least. I will literally fly in for one day to spend that day in my home and get grounded again, because the industry can be so hard on you mentally. You really need a place that you can call home, a place that feels like family, and that’s why I do that. I don’t care if it’s a day or if it’s hours, I want to come back just for that little bit of time.
I’m very close to my parents. I love spending time with my brothers and my whole family, so coming back home, I’m coming back to see my family, too, because they’re right down the street.
I’m going to redo my second story soon. I want to go in there, refresh the paint. Right now it has cream colors, but I would like to put a little dark paint in there and make it like a comfy hotel.
I have my awards and things in a glass case … beside the living room, right when you walk into the kitchen. That’s why I’m going to redo the upstairs. I’m going to make a full room of my awards and costumes and things like that. [It’s] something I’ve always wanted to do because people will come over and they’ll be like, “Where’s that dress that you wore when you won the Josie Music Award at the Grand Ole Opry?” I want to be able to have a space [for] all my accomplishments.
My home is very special to me. It does bring [together] aspects of my entire life—my childhood and my future—but I make sure I always can come home and remember my roots.
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