Elvis Presley House | |
Location | 1034 Audubon Dr. Memphis TN |
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Coordinates | 35°6′12.0378″N 89°55′11.2116″W / 35.103343833°N 89.919781000°W |
Built | ca. 1954 |
Architect | Howard Handwerker [1] |
Architectural style | Ranch |
NRHP reference No. | 05001217 |
Added to NRHP | 2006 |
Elvis Presley House is a one-story ranch style house in a residential neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee. Singer Elvis Presley lived here with his parents between March 1956 and March 1957, [2] before moving to Graceland.
The house is a one-story ranch-style house with concrete foundation and two-car attached garage. [1] It is located in a quiet residential neighborhood. It has four bedrooms and two bathrooms. [3] A brick and metal fence was installed by the Presley family. [4] In the backyard is a motorcycle garage. [4] Elvis installed a pool in the backyard in 1956, [1] which was reported to be the largest residential pool in the city at the time. [5] The pool was removed in 2006. [6]
Originally the house was painted green, [1] then white, then green again. [6]
Elvis purchased the house on March 12, 1956, for $29,500 from the Welsh Plywood Corporation [6] [7] and placed a down-payment of $500 on the house. [2] He was only 21 years old. [2] The new home was not far from his previous residence at 1414 Getwell Road, in what is now a coin operated laundromat. [6]
Shortly after moving there, his song Heartbreak Hotel became the most popular song in the nation (before topping the Billboard charts at #1 in April), and fans mobbed the house, [8] which quickly became a focal visiting point for fans, celebrities and the media. [4] [6] Photos of the house were published in national magazines such as Look, Seventeen, and Parade. [6] Police frequently were called to deal with the mobs of fans who would line the street. [8] [6]
The crush of fans and photographers became too much, and after 13 months [6] Elvis moved to Graceland [6] and sold the Audubon Drive property as part of the mansion and estate’s purchase. [6] Elvis and Graceland owner Ruth Moore swapped residences; she moved into the Audubon home as he moved into the mansion-estate. [6] The property has been sold about eight times since. [6]
The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in March 2006, [1] shortly before its public auction on eBay two months later. [5] [4] Initially, it was reported that 'spoon-bender' Uri Geller won the auction with a bid of $905,100. [3] [5] [9] Instead, the house was sold to record company executive Mike Curb [5] at a reported sale price of $1 million. [10] [6] Curb turned oversight of the property over to the Mike Curb Institute at Rhodes College. [6]
The new owners repainted the house from white to a green color similar to the one when Elvis owned it, renovated the fence, and removed the pool. [6] The house is currently not open to the public, [6] but occasionally hosts small VIP events and private music concerts. [11] In April 2017, the house was damaged by fire while undergoing renovations. [11] Amazingly, most of the contents were undamaged because they were safely secured elsewhere at the time. [11]
A plaque on the brickwork on the fence reads: