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Published: December 14th 2007
Yes you guessed it today we headed off to America’s biggest tourist attraction Graceland. We both thought it would be a lot tackier to be honest, I guess we’ll leave the real glitz for Las Vegas.
The actual house is a lot smaller than you would imagine, but he did add a lot of outbuildings to the back, and it was the largest house in Memphis when he bought it. The décor remains the same as it was in the 70s when he died which does explain a lot for the taste. Today it had Christmas decorations up, fit for the season, which apparently Elvis used to keep up until his birthday on January 8th, so they still follow his tradition, even though superstitious folk says they should come on twelfth night. Another useless fact for the day - did you know more Americans watched the Elvis in Hawaii concert than man walking on the moon for the first time! (OMG this blog is beginning to sound like a history lesson!)
Wearing our Elvis tour headphones (playing Elvis of course) the tour starts as you go through the front door with rather an elaborate lounge with large white sofas
for the Presley’s to chill on, an OTT dining room, an extremely small kitchen for a man who liked his food, followed by the jungle room with the ceilings and walls laid with green shag pile and its very own indoor waterfall. The entertainment room was rather stunning, yellow and black patent leather sofas and mirrors all over the ceiling very 20s retro, unlike the pool room which was erm…very 70s Laura Ashley….
Outback was his racketball house or squash court as us Brits would say. Here he allegedly played the piano on the morning of his death before retiring to the comfort of the bathroom with his burger.
Other outbuildings now house his large collection of jumpsuits - and boy did he own a few, there must be a hundred at least, getting more and more glitzy as he got older. Disappointingly the famous white diamond encrusted suit was not there - but don’t worry, you can buy a replica for $3,500 in the gift shop.
Finally you come to the garden of meditation and the graves, again quite tasteful considering the numbers of fans who like to leave tokens behind. But I should imagine the
armed guards probably clear them at regular intervals.
His 15 cars and two planes are kept over the road, I thought there would have been more, but perhaps they’re in private collections. We then wended our way back via the gift shop, but nothing was tacky enough to warrant a purchase (maybe!)
Song for the day: Elvis vs. JXL - A Little Less Conversation
Nina & Andy have now left the building….
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