Travel: Graceland

Tennessee may be the birthplace of country music in the United States, but it is also home to Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll’s impressive estate, Graceland.

In the heart of Memphis, this 14 acre estate includes a house, recording studio, cemetery, horse pastures, and across the street Elvis’ cars and planes are housed.

The house itself is the most impressive part of the Graceland tour. While guests are only permitted to view the first floor and basement, each room is extravagant and unique and certainly worth seeing. The second floor is considered “private” and will not be part of the tour at the request of Lisa Marie Presley. Also, the layout of the upstairs would not accommodate a large number of visitors without extensive re-modeling and most people agree it is best to simply leave the house as it is.

The tour is self guided, but audio equipment is available which provides commentary about each room or exhibit throughout the grounds.

The first floor of the Graceland mansion includes an extravagantly decorated living room and dining room, complete with blue curtains, mirrored walls and stained glass dividers which separate the living room from the music room which houses Elvis’ grand piano. The first floor is also home to Elvis’ parent’s bedroom, which is decorated in the original white and deep purple. The kitchen is a typical kitchen outfitted from the 50’s and was the hub of life at Graceland.

Passing through the kitchen, you enter the legendary “Jungle Room” which Elvis had re-decorated in1974. The Jungle room features a custom built indoor waterfall and some lavish furniture. It extends almost the entire length of the back of the house and can also be accessed through a second set of stairs which lead up from the basement. Although the Presley family referred to this room as simply “the den” the wild look made this room incredibly popular world wide shortly after Graceland was open for tours in 1982.

The basement features the TV room which held three television sets and was decorated in a loud yellow, dark blue and white ultra-modern 70’s style. The TV room had mirrored ceilings which added to the height of the small room and the wild extravagance with graphics painted on the walls. Across from that was the pool room, which currently houses a pool table and set of couches. During Elvis’ re-decorating phase in the mid 1970’s he had approximately 350-400 yards of fabric cut and hung from the ceilings and walls of this room. It was said to have taken a crew of 3 people 10 days to complete the job.

On the grounds of Graceland, visitors can also visit the Meditation Garden which was built in 1965. In 1977, the bodies of Elvis and his mother were moved to the Meditation Garden from Forest Hill Cemetery. The garden is now home to four graves, those of Elvis, both his parents and his paternal grandmother. There is also a memorial marker in dedication to Elvis’ twin brother Jessie, who died at birth. There are no plans for any other interments at Graceland. While the graves are now part of the paid tour at Graceland, there remains a few hours at dusk where visitors are able to visit the site free of charge, as was the original custom.