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Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion is the most visited private house in the US other than the White House.
Yet, did you know his other Memphis home is nearby, located east of Downton in the suburbs?
Having shot to fame in 1956, Elvis was able to leave his family’s poverty behind and buy a house for himself and his parents at 1034 Audubon Drive.
On March 12, the 21-year-old put a down-payment of $500 on the $29,500 home ($316,000 today) thanks to the royalties from Heartbreak Hotel.
The one-story ranch-style home features a two-car attached garage, four bedrooms and two bathrooms.
Soon after moving in, Heartbreak Hotel hit No 1 on the Billboard chart, and fans would mob the house, forcing the Presleys to install a brick and mental fence to keep them at bay. Meanwhile, Elvis also had the largest residential pool in the city built in the backyard. After just 13 months there, the King’s stardom had skyrocketed. The fan and press attention became too much, so he sold 1034 Audubon Drive and moved into Graceland. It turns out that he and Graceland owner Ruth Moore swapped homes as part of the purchase. Since then, the house has been sold around eight times.
In March 2006, 1034 Audubon Drive was added to the National Register of Historic Places before it was up for public auction on eBay just a couple of months later. Uri Geller was thought to have won with a bid of $905,100, but in the end, it was sold for $1 million to record company executive Mike Curb.
Since then, the house has been painted green to look similar to when Elvis owned it, the pool has been removed, and it’s now officially called Elvis Presley House. In 2017, the home was damaged by fire, but luckily, most of the contents were elsewhere at the time as the property was under renovation. Unlike Graceland, Elvis’ other Memphis house is not open to the public. Instead, it’s used for special VIP events and private music concerts.
Of course, you can still visit from the other side of the fence, which has a plaque that reads: “On March 20, 1956, Elvis Presley and husband parents Vernon and Gladys, moved into 1034 Audubon Driver purchased with royalties from his first million-dollar-selling record, Heartbreak Hotel. It was the year that defined his career. The home is now owned by the Mike Curb Family Foundation, dedicated to the support of music education and restoration of historic music locations. In 2006, the foundation created the Mike Curb Institute for Music at Rhodes College to advance music-related preservation and research.”
