08/30/2026
Whitney Houston took a song Dolly Parton had written nearly twenty years earlier and turned it into one of the most famous recordings in music history.
Dolly made millions from it.
What she did with some of that money makes the story even better.
Dolly originally wrote “I Will Always Love You” as a farewell to Porter Wagoner after deciding to leave his television show and strike out on her own. She recorded it in 1974, and it became a country hit.
Then came Whitney.
In 1992, Houston recorded the song for The Bodyguard. Her enormous, soaring version became a worldwide phenomenon and spent 14 weeks at No. 1 in the United States.
Because Dolly had written the song, Whitney's success also produced an extraordinary windfall for her. Houston's recording reportedly earned Dolly around $10 million in royalties during the 1990s.
Years later, Dolly revealed where some of that money went.
She invested it in an office complex in Nashville, in an area she remembered as being largely home to Black families and businesses.
For Dolly, the connection to Whitney made the location feel right.
She remembered thinking, “This is the perfect place for me to be, considering it was Whitney.”
There was something else she loved about it. The money generated by the phenomenal success of a Black woman's voice was now being invested in a Black Nashville community.
Dolly said she felt she was there with Whitney's people, “who are my people as well.”
And whenever she thought about what those royalties had helped create, Dolly had her own name for the place.
“The house that Whitney built.”
