This Is What Will Happen To Elvis’ Graceland Home

Elvis died in the house in 1977 when Lisa Marie was just nine. He left Graceland to her, and he was buried on the estate. When his father, Vernon, died two years later, Elvis’ ex-wife, Priscilla, became co-executor of his estate. It was Priscilla who made the decision to open Graceland to the public as a museum, and fans flock to the house in the thousands every year. But not quite everything is on show.

“It shuts down quite nice at night,” Lisa Marie told USA Today in 2020. “I have family that I love very much who live there in Memphis. When I go to Memphis, I visit.” She added, “It’s got a very special energy there, when you go. It’s like a time warp, and the energy is still very much there. You can feel it.” One can only imagine all the memories — and the secrets — locked behind Graceland’s doors.

Elvis lived in Graceland for two decades, and during that time he turned the mansion and the near-14 acre estate in Memphis, Tennessee, into the base of operations for his empire. The land was previously owned by generations of the Toof family, who ran Memphis’s first commercial printing business. Intriguingly, “Graceland” takes its name from their family history and has nothing to do with Elvis.

The mansion was actually named after one of the Toof family’s relatives. In 1939 Ruth Brown Moore and her husband Dr. Thomas Moore built the home, and they named it after Ruth’s aunt Grace. And fittingly, music had a part to play at Graceland before Elvis ever came along, thanks to the Moores’ daughter Ruth Marie.

A harpist with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Ruth Marie was known to rehearse in the mansion’s formal rooms. Perhaps Elvis could sense this when he was shown around Graceland, as he would fill those same rooms with rock and roll jam sessions after he bought the property. And over the years, he would increase the size of the home from 10,000 square feet to some 17,000.

Elvis became a part of Graceland’s history in 1957. He had already released two albums and 48 singles by that point, and he was finishing work on his second film, Loving You, at the same time as recording its soundtrack album. He had also been touring for two long years, almost without a break, at that point. You might imagine that he wanted a place where he could get some rest.

On March 19th of that year, Elvis paid a $1,000 cash deposit on Graceland. The total sale price for the mansion in the southern Colonial style was $102,500. It was the second home that 22-year-old Elvis had bought for his family, after the house he'd purchased the previous year on East Memphis’s Audubon Avenue.

Unfortunately, due to his rising fame, the Audubon Avenue family home — located in a residential neighborhood — had been overrun with fans hoping to get a glimpse of their hero. Elvis also needed a place to house his growing entourage, including his extended family and his friends, who depended on him as he became a megastar. The mansion and its 13.8-acre estate were the answer.

For all intents and purposes, Graceland was where Elvis would live with his parents Vernon and Gladys, as well as his grandmother Minnie Mae. But unofficially, the revolving door would admit new and old friends who latched onto the superstar and treated the mansion as their own personal social club and hotel. They became known as the “Memphis Mafia.”

“[The mansion was the] home of the organization that was [Elvis],” wrote Mark Crispin Miller, author of Boxed In: The Culture of TV. “[It] was tended by a large vague clan of Presleys and deputy Presleys, each squandering the vast gratuities which Elvis used to keep his whole world smiling.” It must have been quite a circus.

Elvis’ family lived in grand style. As Miller wrote, Vernon “had a swimming pool in his bedroom,” along with a jukebox stocked with records handpicked by his son. Elvis himself would spend countless hours in his bedroom, keeping a watchful eye on the property on security cameras. One can only imagine the features that were installed into the house — both public and private.

Elvis’ mother died in 1958, and his father remarried two years later. His new wife, Dee Stanley, lived with Vernon at Graceland for a while. As Elaine Dundy revealed in her book Elvis and Gladys, Stanley perhaps made herself too comfortable in the mansion, which led to friction with Elvis. This was a private space for the King of Rock and Roll, after all.

Vernon made himself comfortable in the home with his new wife, Dee. And Dee was more than happy to take on Gladys’ part as mistress of the house. Enough so, in fact, that according to Dundy, she felt free to replace Gladys’ curtains and to move the furniture around while Elvis was away from the house. For Elvis, this was a step too far.

One day, a van turned up at Graceland. All of Stanley’s home improvements, clothes, and possessions were loaded onto the van, along with her pets. Vernon, Stanley, and her three children were shifted to a house nearby before they eventually moved into a home on Dolan Drive, adjacent to the Graceland grounds. The King had made it clear to Stanley that she wouldn’t replace his mother or remove Gladys’ stamp on the house...

Then, as the 1960s rolled on, Elvis’ girlfriend Priscilla Beaulieu moved in with him in Graceland. They were married in Las Vegas in 1967, and the next year saw the birth of their daughter Lisa Marie. At this point, Elvis made some changes to the upper floor of Graceland, including converting one of the four bedrooms into a nursery for his new baby.

The other bedrooms were also in use. One was Elvis’ home office and one was a room dedicated to his extensive and always-growing wardrobe. Vernon also had an office, though it was in another building on the property. In this office, he and an army of secretaries sifted through the huge amounts of fan mail received by the King.

Lisa Marie would be Elvis’ only child, and in August 2020 she told USA Today that she had extremely fond memories of growing up on the unique Graceland estate. “It was my childhood home; I was born in Memphis and it was my home,” she said. “It was such an incredible place to grow up. Very special.”

As Libby Boren McMillan of USA Today wrote, “Priscilla’s business acumen turned a family home burdened by large upkeep expense into a successful empire that now includes TV and video projects, merchandising, and a worldwide licensing program.” Once Lisa Marie came of age, her mother shifted to become an advisor. But even later in her life, Lisa Marie still sometimes stayed overnight in Graceland after the museum’s tours were over.

In 2006 Graceland was named a National Historic Landmark. In June of that year, when George W. Bush arrived for a tour, he became the first president in office to visit Graceland. It’s no surprise that he wanted to see it, though: it’s the second-most visited house in the U.S. behind only the White House. More than 500,000 guests apparently pass through its doors each year.

Lisa Marie's role in keeping Graceland a hugely popular tourist attraction can't be denied. In 1993 Lisa Marie — who at 25 years old was the last surviving inheritor of the estate — formed the Elvis Presley Trust. The trust's main purpose was to support the estate's management and keep Graceland a popular, beloved American institution.

Lisa Marie had a major management role with the Elvis Presley Trust until 2005. Even after she pulled back from the estate in order to focus on her music career, she kept a close eye on Graceland and how it was managed for the rest of her life. And now this responsibility falls to her own children: Riley, Harper, and Finley. At 33 years old, Riley is the one the world has looked to for information about Graceland's fate.

Much like her mother, Riley Keough has inherited the Graceland estate via a trust. She also inherited her mother's love of performing, and she was even nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 2016. Her starring role in the Amazon series Daisy Jones & The Six promises to make Riley busier than ever, making Graceland's fate an unknown.

For the time being, Riley and her sisters (who are only teenagers) will most likely leave any big management decisions to the countless people who keep Graceland and Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. alive — and perhaps Priscilla as well. These hardworking people, plus the surrounding community, created a beautiful memorial for Lisa Marie when she returned home for the final time in 2023.

Lisa Marie was interred in the Graceland Meditation Garden alongside her son and father. It's fitting for Lisa Marie's final resting place to be at Graceland, as it's the home that was always closest to her heart. Back in 2012 she even opened a VIP exhibit at Graceland called "Elvis... Through His Daughter's Eyes," which featured hundreds of personal items, photos, and home movies from Lisa Marie's unique childhood.

Lisa Marie's love for Graceland never waned, which also explains her protectiveness over certain parts of the estate. It was Priscilla and the estate's other executors who made the ultimate decision to open Graceland up to the public back in the '80s, and people have roamed its hallowed halls (and searched for hidden rooms) ever since. Because of this, it came as a shock when Lisa Marie let cameras into an as-yet-unseen room of the house back in 2006.

Up until that point, one of the rules enforced by the staff was that the upper floor was off-limits to fans, as this area was always known to be Elvis’ personal space. In 2020 a live Q&A video was posted online that featured the director of archives, Angie Marchese, and she referred to the strict rules that were still in force.

The video began with Marchese standing in front of the stairs, teasing, “So the one thing about Graceland and its mystique is the upstairs and the fact that it was Elvis’ private area. So no one is allowed to go upstairs. Well, because we’re on Instagram Live…” Unfortunately for fans, though, Marchese followed that up, saying, “No, we’re still not allowed to go upstairs, sorry.”

Marchese did want to give fans an insight into the upstairs section of the house, though. She revealed, “It looks as if he just got up and left. It is part of my job to maintain it. So we do go up there to maintain the space. The record on the record player is the last record he listened to. There’s a Styrofoam cup that sits on a bookshelf.”

Discussing Elvis’ bedroom, Marchese said, “The bed is made, so we really maintain it the way that Lisa wants us to preserve it. So, unfortunately, we can’t see it, but it is taken care of.” Marchese then highlighted the stairs that lead from the main landing outside of Elvis’ bedroom and down to Graceland’s kitchen, a spot where the King would often be found during his time in the home.

There was a room in Graceland that was even more private than Elvis’ bedroom, though. In 2006 Lisa Marie gave a televised tour to Oprah Winfrey, and she revealed the truth about the hidden room. It houses a treasure trove of memories and memorabilia of Elvis’ life and work, and its existence had previously been completely unknown to the world.

The room was so secret, in fact, that Lisa Marie insisted Oprah’s cameras be switched off before entering. The cameras were then switched on again once they were safely inside. This meant that eagle-eyed viewers had no way of working out its location in the Graceland property. Oprah was then treated to a special tour that would have turned Elvis’ fans green with envy.

Once inside, visitors have to wear gloves at all times. This is because the rows upon rows of cabinets house ultra-rare personalized checks signed by Elvis himself, as well as posters and other documents. More than 60,000 photos illustrate the King’s life, and you can also find 88 of his trademark jumpsuits in the room. As a further precaution, the room is apparently protected from earthquakes, tornadoes, and fires.

One section of the room contains what Lisa Marie referred to as “the fun stuff.” This included Elvis’ jewelry and cufflinks, which all feature big glistening rocks. Sunglasses worn in 1972 also take pride of place. Overall, the room meant a lot to Lisa Marie, who felt that she could go there to feel closer to her father.

“It’s very comforting that I can come,” explained Lisa Marie. “Nobody actually knows that this is here. I know I can come at any time and rummage through the boxes and grab stuff. It’s quite comforting. The whole thing, even the house is like a little time capsule of the past and nothing has ever changed.”

Lisa Marie’s tour also showed off two other rooms, including the infamous Jungle Room. Elvis simply referred to it as “the den,” but that is perhaps underselling the unique tropical tiki bar-inspired decor. The room has a built-in rock waterfall, for one thing. Standing in the room, a knowing Lisa Marie simply said to Oprah, “If these walls could talk.”

However, Lisa Marie was more forthcoming about the pool room. “Down here, particularly, this was just the mayhem room,” she said. “Pool balls would fly. I just instinctively got into trouble down here, [I would] play hide and seek and [get] up to no good.” It wouldn’t just be Elvis’ daughter who caused havoc in the pool room, though.

“He — I found out later — threw a tear gas bomb when everyone was down here,” Lisa Marie said, speaking about her prankster father. “Or laughing gas. It was just this mischievous, odd place where if you destroyed it, it would somehow recover quickly.” The King clearly played by his own rules.

But what does the future hold for Graceland? Lisa Marie was unequivocal when USA Today asked her if she would ever sell it. “Sometimes there are rumors about it being sold, and that is never going to happen,” she said. “There’s always a rumor. It is not getting sold. Graceland was given to me and will always be mine and then passed to my children.”

Now, following Lisa Marie’s passing, Graceland has of course passed on to another generation of Elvis’ descendants — but it remains to be seen just what the future will hold. When Riley, Harper, and Finley take the helm, they will undoubtedly do what they can to honor their grandfather and mother's memories. And on an estate as historically significant and beloved as Graceland, it's impossible not to feel the presence of both Presleys.