Rumors of a potential suitor buying up Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace, a country music landmark in Bakersfield that shut down a year ago, have made their way through the city and beyond over the last few days. 

But officials from the Buck Owens Private Foundation, which owns and maintains the property, said that the talk of a pending sale and a new buyer with plans to tear it all down has distorted the reality of the current situation.

“That particular thing has kind of gone wrong,” Jim Shaw, the director of the foundation, told SFGATE on Tuesday. “It came from a local television station that wanted a comment from us. We sent them a long statement with one sentence that says we have multiple offers, one for a teardown. We went into great detail. Ideally, we’d have something going the way it was.” 

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A neon sign is visible on the upper level at Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, Calif., on April 14, 2023.

Buck Owens in his signature red jacket. Owens, a longtime resident of Bakersfield, Calif., is credited with being a pioneer of the Bakersfield Sound. 

The Bakersfield sign on Sillect Avenue near Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, Calif., on March 28, 2025.

KERO-TV, Bakersfield’s ABC affiliate, reported on Monday that the Crystal Palace could be in some kind of jeopardy, sending country music fans in town and beyond scrambling. 

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“Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace closed about a year ago, and its future remains uncertain,” the report said. “Now, one offer on the table would mean tearing it down.”

One of the concerned residents, musician Scotty Crabtree, who performed at the Crystal Palace starting in the early 2000s, immediately spun up an online petition to save the venue. 

“Once an important original building is gone, its authentic connection to the people and events associated with it........

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