Head East to Smoky Mountains Chalet : Jim, Tammy Bakker Move Out of Palm Springs Home

PALM SPRINGS —  PTL founders Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker packed their belongings in a rented truck Tuesday and left their California residence for a drive across the country to their new home--a $148,000 chalet in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains.

“It’s always sad to change,” Tammy Faye said before the couple vacated their Palm Springs home, which is for sale for $650,000.

“Ladies don’t make changes well. We’ve fallen in love with Palm Springs. They let you be you here,” she said, adding, “I’ll be me anyway, because I don’t know who else to be.”

The couple, driving a white Cadillac and followed by the truck, declined to talk to reporters awaiting their departure. But Tammy Faye shouted as they drove away: “Bye, Bye. We love you.”

The Bakkers declined to say where they will spend the night or when they will arrive in Tennessee.

Before leaving, Tammy Faye Bakker went to the bank to withdraw some “gas money” and said they were driving across country instead of flying because “we’re having to be careful (with money).”

“It’ll be fun to see the United States again,” she said. “We’ve driven across the United States several times.”

She said she was looking forward to seeing their children again and seemed unconcerned about moving into a smaller home near the tourist town of Gatlinburg, Tenn.

“We have lived in a small house and a big house, and we were just as happy.”

Reporters and several followers waited outside the Bakkers’ home for the couple to depart. A florist brought a dozen roses for Tammy Faye Bakker, and 15-year-old follower, Charles Clark, was allowed inside to tell the couple he still believed in them.

“They just said they were glad to meet me; they’ll keep my letter,” Charles said. “They were just so important on TV to me. . . .”

Jim Bakker resigned from the PTL in a scandal over his sexual tryst seven years ago with a former church secretary.

The Bakkers’ home here, with swimming pool and guest house, was listed in mid-June for $700,000, including the furniture, but the selling price was reduced to $650,000 Friday, said Emma Howard, a real estate agent and friend who has shown the sprawling home to more than 30 prospective buyers.

Howard said the Bakkers will use the proceeds from the sale of the Palm Springs residence to finish paying for the Gatlinburg home.

The Bakkers also sold one of their cars, a 1984 Mercedes-Benz 380SL, to a Palm Springs man last week, Howard said.

The fate of the PTL, meanwhile, hangs on raising $1.75 million from followers by this weekend.

“Friday is very close by now,” the Rev. Jerry Falwell said on the daily PTL Show. “We need a miracle . . . send the most sacrificial gift you can.”

“We are on the brink of disaster,” chimed in show co-host Doug Oldham. “Next Monday, we may not be able to come into your homes.”

In a related development, it appeared that a major figure in the PTL upheaval may speak out for the first time.

William Diehl, attorney for former PTL President Richard Dortch, said, “we are reevaluating” Dortch’s decision to remain silent. Dortch, once Jim Bakker’s right-hand man, resigned as president in a board room confrontation with Falwell.