Good fences make good neighbors, or so claims the famous line of poetry most of us had to read in high school. But, according to Rico Rodriguez, what really makes good neighbors are good gardens. And those same good gardens can make for good roofing, too. Welcome to Rico’s Sky Garden, a unique space in East Nashville that serves as a “garden for good” and a verdant venue for small events.
“This house is one of a kind” Rico says. “There’s no other place quite like it on the planet.” Little doubt he’s right. The structure’s backstory starts in 2015 when Rico’s neighbor Eddie Carpenter, then the owner, single-handedly transformed a nondescript, one-story cookie cutter into a multilevel, rooftop-garden home replete with underground “pond” and pumps that circulate water around the property.
Rico unexpectedly became the home’s owner in September of ‘21 while ostensibly in town to visit his sister. The siblings had decided to go look at houses. “I just fell in love,” Rico recalls upon first entering Eddie’s architectural-agricultural masterpiece. “Within one week of arriving in Nashville, I was under contract to buy a house, and I hadn’t planned on any of that.”
He may not have planned on it, but he did dream it. “I had dreamed of a place where nature was mixed in with the city,” Rico says. “I have a philosophy that believes we are supposed to work the land.” It is a philosophy inspired by Rico’s family whose pictures adorn the walls – a grandfather who was a migrant farmer worker in California and a father who marched with Cesar Chavez.
“My family came from very humble beginnings,” Rico says. “Now I pick fruit for them from my garden on my beautiful property. It’s come full circle.”
But Rico’s family is far from the only beneficiary of his realized dream. “I wanted to grow food and give it away,” he says. “All the food that’s grown here is 100% donated. Some to my neighbors – I’ll be out gardening and people will stop by and talk – but most to the Heimerdinger Foundation, a Nashville nonprofit providing nutrient-dense meals to people facing cancer.”
While the plump orange tomatoes and prodigious peppers belie it, Rico does not claim to be an expert gardener. In fact, just the opposite: Rico, a self-described “city kid,” was for years a touring musician, playing drums for the band Night Riots, hardly the résumé of a professional farmer. “I need to learn how to grow stuff,” Rico admits. “I am not good at this yet – it’s my second season ever – but I do grow things, and I do give them away. I’m going to get better every year.That’s part of my message to people.You don’t have to be a professional farmer to grow food. You can be someone like me who knows basically nothing. Nature will take care of itself.”
And with people like Rico around, Nashville is blessed with folks who take care of each other.
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