Years that end in seven are a big deal — and big business — in Memphis, Tennessee. When Elvis Presley died at his Graceland mansion on August 16, 1977, the Mid-South gained “Elvis Week” near the end of every summer. And the biggest tourist week of the year gets a booster shot when another decade is marked since the King of Rock-and-Roll’s passing.
Elvis fans commemorating this year’s 40th anniversary can experience Graceland in ways no one else has since the mansion first opened for tours in 1982. Newly opened (since last October) is the Guest House at Graceland, a 450-room resort hotel designed to reflect the famous mansion both architecturally and in terms of the King’s inimitable style. Then across Elvis Presley Boulevard is a new entertainment complex — Elvis Presley’s Memphis — devoted to Elvis’ life, music, cars, movies, and every element of pop culture the icon has come to reflect. At a total cost of $137 million ($92 million for the Guest House alone), the renovations have transformed the Graceland experience.
My family made the Guest House a destination for one night to culminate Spring Break in March. And we couldn’t help falling in love.
The Guest House is distinctly Elvis — distinctly Graceland, by a few measures — but not “in-your-face Elvis” as Mike Pramshafer notes. The Guest House’s vice president of sales and marketing says, “Elvis fans will appreciate the Guest House, and there are subtleties in every room that reflect Elvis. But you don’t have to be an Elvis fan to be comfortable here.”
Jeffrey Jacobs
Priscilla Presley, the singer’s former wife, has long claimed Elvis planned to build a guest house on the Graceland estate; he simply died before the vision could be realized. Today, that vision can be summarized in mammoth terms: two six-floor wings flanking a seven-floor central tower, 450 rooms altogether. The Guest House features 20 top-floor suites, including four King Suites that each measure 1,500 square feet (and feature a flat-screen television in the ceiling above the bed). From the outside, the hotel looks like a dramatically inflated version of the mansion, with faux stone columns extending to the roof and a grand portico receiving cars and shuttles carrying guests. (Hnedak Bobo Group designed the facility.)
The grand lobby offers chairs and couches with oversized, tapered backs (a stylistic nod to the oversized collars Elvis favored in the 1970s). The ceiling is mirrored, but in a symmetrical array borrowed directly from one of Elvis’ Vegas-era jumpsuits. Distinctly Elvis, yes. But not overpowering. An adjoining piano bar serves as a lounge between visits to your room, complete with charging stations and a purse hook at each barstool.
After checking into our sixth-floor room, we took in the view of the backyard Lawn, an expanse of grass that connects the hotel’s “back porch” (heaters in the winter, misters during the warm-weather months) with the resort’s swimming pool and hot tub. Those draws would have to wait, though. Camera-phones in hand, the four of us headed for our first adventure in Elvis Presley’s Memphis.
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If you’ve seen an Elvis jumpsuit, it was likely in what can best be described as a luxury storage unit behind the Graceland mansion. Movie posters and gold records dressed up the late entertainer’s gallery of glitz, but it was a tiny fraction of the memorabilia housed by Elvis Presley Enterprises, and but a tease when you consider the insatiable curiosity of Graceland’s pilgrims for anything — big, small, with rhinestones or without — that once touched the King.
There is no more storage unit. A mini-village has been created across Elvis Presley Boulevard from Graceland, one with no fewer than 11 distinct galleries, two restaurants, a soundstage, and an exhibit lounge exclusively for tourists who purchase a VIP experience.
The largest of the galleries is called “Elvis The Entertainer Career Museum.” Here the jumpsuits and performance gear have new room to breathe, and Elvis’ music honors shine, quite literally, in new light. Each of his three Grammy awards (for gospel performances, mind you) has its own display case. The three primary outfits Elvis made famous on his ’68 Comeback Special stand side-by-side: white, crimson, and black leather that still makes a certain generation of fans weak in the knees.
The “Tupelo” gallery takes you back to the mid-twentieth century, when musical acts often found their biggest audience at carnivals. My teenage daughters looked skeptically at games like Goblet Toss (“$3 for 3 tries”) or “Bottle Up” (in which you try and lift a soda bottle into standing position with a fishing pole and plastic hook). Another visitor slammed a mallet mightily at a platform in an attempt to ring a bell 15 feet above the ground. Yes, a cliché image. But if you want Tupelo, Mississippi, in the 1950s — Elvis was there! — here you have it.
Elvis was a profligate spender on automobiles, and his collection now has its own expansive, well, garage. There’s the pink Cadillac you see on countless trinkets, but also his Dino Ferrari and the sports car Elvis shot — with a gun, twice — because it wouldn’t start properly: a 1971 canary yellow DeTomaso Pantera. Adjacent to the auto museum is a gallery with Elvis’ motorcycles. The man liked machines.
My daughters found themselves a bit more engaged in the “Icons” exhibit. This is a gallery created to share and promote the influence Elvis has, to this day, on entertainment around the world. I liked the Bruce Springsteen display, with one of the Boss’ leather jackets. My wife pointed out the singular connection between Elvis and Dolly Parton’s display: blue sequins. Jimi Hendrix is there. Joan Jett. Even a piano played by John Lennon, with a note: “If there hadn’t been an Elvis, there wouldn’t have been the Beatles.”
Elvis Presley’s Memphis is included in a tour package that starts with the mansion ($57.50), but can be toured separately ($28.75) by arranging over the phone or in person at the welcome center.
Visitors take a selfie in the plaza of Elvis Presley’s Memphis.
We returned to the GuestHouse for an early dinner at Delta’s Kitchen. (Tip: You can save 20 percent when seated between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.) The resort’s fine-dining venue offers indoor and outdoor seating (for up to 120 people) with minimal, if any, Elvis imagery. The music softly accompanying our dinner included some Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and a little Stax.
I enjoyed the Norwegian salmon ($25), seasoned with citrus tarragon butter on a bed of roasted carrots. Two of my companions raved about the porcini and truffle ravioli ($23), a veggie dish served with asparagus, walnuts, and parmesan cream. A 14-ounce rib-eye steak ($38) and shrimp-and-grits ($26) are among other menu highlights. Delta’s Kitchen offers a distinctly Southern breakfast buffet ($16) with sausage gravy and johnnycakes in addition to omelets made to order.
With the hotel’s nearby fitness room — featuring a stack of medicine balls, no less — mocking us, we chose to visit the cinema for a 7 p.m. screening of Love Me Tender, the 1956 western that introduced Elvis to the silver screen. The 464-seat theater shows films nightly (no cost to guests, and not always an Elvis flick) and includes a stage for live performances. (Did Clint Reno fire the shot that wounded his brother? I left my seat still wondering.)
Near the cinema in the north wing of the hotel is an 11,000-square-foot ball room, one that has already hosted conferences for the likes of AutoZone and International Paper. Four breakout rooms are named for each of the halls of fame where Elvis has been honored: Rock, Gospel, Blues, and Country.
A suite fit for a king at the Guest House.
While the girls enjoyed an hour in the outdoor hot tub, my wife and I did some channel-swapping on the flatscreen in our room. One closed-circuit channel runs a continuous loop of Elvis’s ’68 Comeback Special while another features his 1973 concert, Aloha From Hawaii, a broadcast said to have been watched by more people than the moon landing four years earlier.
Back out on the Lawn, we resisted the temptation of lounging in the hot tub, but were drawn to the “Burning Love Fire Pit.” With temperatures in the upper 50s, the gas flames — in the shape of a heart — made for a pleasant spell under the stars. The swimming pool, it should be noted, is less than four feet deep. It’s there for cooling down during the sweltering tourist season, but no cannonballs or swan dives. Plans are in place to add games — from table tennis to cornhole — to the Lawn for additional outdoor fun at the Guest House.
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We wrapped up our evening at EP’s Bar and Grill, basketball (the NCAA tournament and a Grizzlies-Spurs tilt) on all 11 TVs, the pool table occupied by two men who may or may not have appreciated Elvis’ devotion to the game. While the girls nibbled on mac-and-cheese bites, my wife and I enjoyed the local draft selection (she chose Ghost River’s Golden Ale while I went with a Tiny Bomb by Wiseacre). Open daily for lunch and dinner, the pub offers signature cocktails that will tease Elvis fans: Kid Galahad Punch (Pritchard’s Rum, Graceland Punch, bitters) and the Bossa Nova Baby (Avion Tequila, orgeat, and ginger beer). A grilled peanut butter-and-banana sandwich with fries can be had for $13.
In a word, our night at the Guest House was comfortable. We felt a part of Elvis Presley’s world, but on our own terms. (There are TV channels without Elvis concerts.) The pool, pub, and restaurant are going to be packed come peak season in August, but isn’t that the point? Those rumors that generations of Elvis fans will die off, and Graceland with them, were strictly that: rumors. My daughters (again, teenagers) wouldn’t end their staycation without a late-morning milkshake from Gladys’ Diner (on the grounds of Elvis Presley’s Memphis). Young, old, and in-between, Graceland’s pilgrims have new reasons to make their way down Elvis Presley Boulevard. With a hotel that leaves heartbreak well behind.
