By Michaela Gordoni
Jill Wagner soaks in her southern roots on her homestead in Tennessee after leaving LA.
Wagner bought an old neoclassical farmhouse called Scott Mansion with her husband nine years ago.
“It looked like a scary haunted house,” the Teddy Bear Award® winner said. “She was a sad old girl.”
The house, which looks over 200 acres of hillside, was built in 1912 by a lumber tycoon. It had been vacant for 10 years before Wagner bought it. It took 18 months to renovate the mansion, and the Great American Family star says it was worth every penny.
“We wanted a family, and I saw my children running around in the front yard,” said the star, who is now mom to daughters Army Gray, 5, and Daisy Roberta, 3, and stepmom to her husband’s daughter from a previous marriage, Lija. “I knew it could be fixed. And I wanted to be the one to restore this piece of history.”
Wagner moved to Tennessee to get away from big city life.
“LA held a very special place in my heart for my 20s and my 30s. But I’m a small town girl at heart. That’s where I feel comfortable,” she shared.
“I grew up in a small town, so for the 20 years that I lived in L.A., I was starved of the things I was used to,” Wagner said. So when she moved to a town of 800 people, it “didn’t feel like a loss. It felt like I gained something that I’d been missing.”
“We got married, moved cross-country and went through a renovation all within a year. I’m proud we stayed together!” the LIONESS star said.
While she wanted to keep some things true to the house’s old style, she also didn’t want to “live in a museum.”
“I definitely wanted the outside to be restored to what it was and the inside to maintain a sense of who she was, but still be livable and still add our own style.”
Wagner and her husband have a dozen cattle on their land.
Related: Jill Wagner Shares Quiet Farm-Life Moment: ‘What God Has Created’
“I eat beef, but I just can’t eat my buddies,” she said.
Wagner homeschools her kids on the farmstead, too.
“It’s Little House on the Prairie here,” she said of the one-room chapel/schoolhouse where her kids learn. Wagner and her husband prayed in the building before buying the property.
“It was at the top end of our budget at that time,” Wagner said. “We prayed, ‘God, if this is meant for us, then you’ll find a way.’”
The couple share their property with the community once a year on “Patriotic Pick.” Visitors come and pluck grapes from their vineyard for the price of a ticket, which benefits the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
“I am a firm believer in paying respects to those who serve and to their families. This day is to give back to the ones who have paid the ultimate sacrifice,” Wagner shared about the upcoming Patriotic Pick on Sept. 6. “We raise money to help put their children they left behind through school.”
Her more simple life “allows us to connect deeper. It forces us to talk to each other because there’s not much going on!” she said.
“Some friends in LA are like, ‘What do you do there?’ I watch my cows, I garden, I go outside with the girls, we hike. I find my connection on the farm, with human beings and with nature,” she said.
Wagner recently shared photos of herself joyfully picking fruit in an orchard with her daughters.
“Thank GOD for the summertime ❤️❤️❤️” she said.
It looks like Wagner has unlocked a lot of happiness by slowing down and enjoying the more simple things.
Read Next: Jill Wagner Reflects On Giving Life to God: ‘God Was With Me’
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