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The sidewalks are cracked and shifted on Kent Street. The porches are peeling. Sixty years ago, the residents of this gently hilly enclave on the east side of Winchester, Va., were strictly white working class. Today they’re more ethnically diverse, like the city generally, though each house still looks like a place where people have to make their money stretch. All except for no. 608, which looks exactly as it did back when the street was only white folks. That Saturday, a small crowd had gathered outside, and JudySue Huyett-Kempf was smiling anxiously as she shook hands on the porch, welcoming everyone to the former home of one of the best-known singers in the world.

Not long ago, the Patsy Cline Historic House and Museum was in total disrepair, stuck in legal limbo after decades as a rental. But in 2011, this tin-roofed two-story with white paint and black shutters was transformed into the only tourist attraction in sight. Its six front windows now gleam like a grand piano, and clean bricks line its stretch of the sidewalk, engraved with the names of the people who donated them. Visitors from as far away as Australia and Japan have paid their $8 to get inside and see a painstaking restoration of the building as it was between 1948 and 1957, the longest Patsy lived in any building throughout her short life.

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