The flames went higher, and it burns, burns, burns... Johnny's house, destroyed by a ring of fire

The mourning of Johnny Cash since his death in September 2003, four months after the passing of his beloved second wife, June Carter Cash, has had more verses than even the longest of his tear-tinged country ballads.

For his fans, the final, cathartic farewell came with the 2005 release of the Hollywood tribute Walk the Line, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Cash and Reese Witherspoon as Carter.

For the family, the grieving inevitably collided with the more pragmatic questions of disposing of the estate. Most importantly there was the house on the lake - the Cashes' Camelot, as they called it - which burnt to the ground on Tuesday. It had been their home, their sanctuary and place of musical inspiration from the late 1960s until their deaths.

More than just a home, it had nurtured one of the greatest love stories in entertainment history. It was built by one of Tennessee's foremost architects, Braxton Dixon. In timber, glass and stone with multiple levels and a signature round living room overlooking Old Hickory Lake, it was considered the nearest thing to a Frank Lloyd Wright in that part of the country.

Then there were all the people who had been guests there, from music icons, such as Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson, who once landed a helicopter on the front lawn in a desperate bid to persuade Cash to listen to tape of a song he had written, to American presidents. And never mind all the furniture and knick-knacks June had crammed inside.

The stuff had to be tackled first. Johnny was known for keeping an acoustic guitar in almost every one of the house's 18 rooms, so one was always close at hand should inspiration take him and chords had to be strummed. June was responsible for almost everything else - the art, the furniture and the enormous collection of bells mainly dispersed around the water-side gardens. Finally, everything was packed and catalogued and sold at auction at Sotheby's in New York in over 650 lots in September 2004.

Rosanne Cash, Johnny's daughter from his first marriage, wrote about the painful process of parting with these belongings, including numerous musical instruments, on her 2006 Black Cadillac album. "There's nothing left to take," she sang in "House on the Lake". "There's nothing left to take/ But love and years are not for sale/ In our old house on the lake".

Disposing of the house itself might have seemed like sacrilege. But needs must and in January 2006, a buyer was found. And it felt right. Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees agreed to purchase the property and its four acres for $2.3m (£1.2m) as a retreat for him and his family during the hurricane season when Miami, his primary home, is not always the best place to be.

Camelot was staying in the industry. And John Carter Cash - the only child that Johnny and June had together - at least hung on to the small cabin across the gravel road from the main house where his father had in later years recorded many of his songs.

But Gibb will never move in now. Was it the wrath of Cash himself or of the gods that protect his soul who ignited the spark? No one knows but doubtless songs not yet written will give their answers. The house has gone, victim of the title to one of Cash's own ballads, a 'Ring of Fire'. Call it superstition, but someone somewhere had decided that the Cash-Carter House was never to be lived in by anyone else.

Of course, there are more prosaic explanations for what may have started the fire that erupted on Tuesday afternoon and within hours had consumed the house completely. By nightfall all that remained were some twisted steel framing and charred chimney stacks. Firemen had arrived from nearby Hendersonville, the suburban community about 20 miles north-east of downtown Nashville that has mushroomed around Old Hickory Lake in the last two decades. But because of the unique, multi-level geography of the house and the heavy presence of wood, saving it was more than anyone could do.

The likely culprit, according to Hendersonville fire officials, was a flammable preservative that contractors hired by Gibb to renovate the property had just finished applying to the exterior. While there was still no formal finding on the cause yesterday, it seems likely that something ignited fumes from the substance and the inferno was almost instant. The crew at the house was only weeks away from finishing the preservative work and allowing Gibb to move in.

It is a tough break for the Gibb family, of course, who now face the choice of looking elsewhere for their hurricane retreat or rebuilding on the site by the lake.

"They are both saddened and devastated by the news," was the simple statement released by the publicist Paul Bloch on behalf of Barry Gibb and his wife Linda. But for friends and family - and for many fans - the shock is more emotional. As they digest the loss of the house, they realise something else: the memories are being revived all over again and the mourning of Johnny and June that they thought was over has been given a new and quite unexpected coda.

Mr Dixon began building the house in the early sixties for himself. It was an unusual project from the start, consisting of materials taken from 14 other structures around the region. It rose to three storeys right on the water's edge and covered more than 13,000 sq ft. The 18 rooms included five full baths, seven bedrooms as well the circular living area. There was also an outdoor pool. In 1967, Cash saw the house on Caudill Drive and, not without some difficulty, persuaded Mr Dixon to sell it to him.

"It was a very, very unusual contemporary structure," said Cash's brother, Tommy. "It was built with stone and wood and all kinds of unusual materials, from marble to old barn wood.

"I don't think there was a major blueprint. I think the builder was building it the way he wanted it to look."

The place was perfect for Cash. Hendersonville was little more than a cluster of gladed homes in those days and the house offered a perfect sense of remoteness, where the singer could hide from the pressures of the outside world. His body at the time was ravaged by years of substance abuse and he needed a place to recover his health and most importantly isolate himself from those people who had led him astray.

He also wanted it as a hideaway where he could cement relations with his new love, June Carter, with whom he was already firmly attached romantically but not yet married.

Early years at the house were mostly about recovery in the cocoon provided by June and her family, all of whom effectively moved in with the country legend. "June and her mother and father formed a circle of faith around me caring for me and insulating me from the outside world, particularly the people, some of them close friends, who'd been doing drugs with me," Cash wrote in his memoir, Cash - The Autobiography.

The film Walk the Line, for which Witherspoon earned an Oscar, includes one memorable scene when Cash clashes with his ever-critical father about a tractor he has left stuck in the mud outside. In a furious, drunken attempt to free the machine, Cash ends up reversing it right into the lake.

Over time, Johnny and June found peace at the house. For a while keeping the wrong people out remained a priority. Kristofferson said at the time of his helicopter stunt that it was genuinely his only means of penetrating the protection around the Cash home.

As it happens, it was a trip well taken. Cash loved the demo tape and ended up recording the song, "Sunday Morning Coming Down" as well as others composed by Kristofferson.

But by the mid-1970s, the couple was regularly inviting peers from the music industry to visit and play together with them. Legends who came to Hendersonville included Dylan and Mickey Newbury. Cash also began to invite upcoming musicians who had not yet reached the big time but in whom he recognised special talent, including Vince Matthews and Larry Gatlin.

"It was a sanctuary and a fortress for him," said the singer Marty Stuart, who lives next door to the estate and was married in the 1980s to Cash's daughter Cindy. "So many prominent things and prominent people in American history took place in that house. There was a lot of writing that took place there."

Indeed, Cash, who begun his musical career in the 1950s after serving in the Second World War and whose biggest hits also included "Folsom Prison Blues", composed many songs in the solitude of Hendersonville.

The house was always just as much June's as it was Johnny's, however. "She thought of it as her and dad's private kingdom," writes John Carter Cash in his book Anchored in Love: The Life and Legacy of June Carter Cash', due to be published in June. John has also recently completed a tribute album to his mother, also set to be released this summer, which he recorded in the cabin that was never sold.

"Every inch of the house was something June bought or put there," said Barbara Orbison, the widow of Ray Orbison, neighbours of the Cashes for years.

"If you thought about Johnny and June, you thought about that house. It was so associated with Johnny and June, it never really felt right for me that anybody else should ever be in that house. That was their house. I guess it will forever be their house".

And now it will, even in ashes.

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