Info about Mansions
The Graceland Mansion
At Elvis Presley’s death, his will named his father, Vernon, as trustee and executor of his estate. His beneficiaries were his closest relatives, Minnie Mae Presley, his grandmother, Vernon Presley, his father, and Lisa Marie, Elvis’s only child. Elvis passed away in 1977 and in 1979 his father passed away. Minnie Mae passed away in 1980, leaving Lisa Marie as the only heir of Elvis’s estate. Lisa Marie’s inheritance was placed in a trust fund to be kept until her twenty-fifth birthday which was February 1, 1993. She was only nine years old when Elvis died.
Elvis did not worry about planning financially. He wanted to enjoy his wealth and share it with others during his lifetime. When he died, his estate was far from broke, but cash flow was a problem. The upkeep of the Graceland mansion was more than a half million dollars every year that came out of Lisa Marie’s trust fund. This fact made it only logical for the executors of the estate and Priscilla to open Graceland for public visitors because it was slowing using up Lisa Marie’s trust fund just to pay the property taxes and pay for the upkeep of the property.
Jack Soden, who was an investment counselor from Missouri, was hired by Priscilla to create a plan for opening Graceland for public tours and overseeing the entire operation. The Graceland mansion opened in June of 1982 for public tours.
The properties around Graceland were acquired over the next few years. All of the attractions and shops found in the Graceland Plaza belong to Elvis Presley Enterprise. Elvis had already owned some of the property near Graceland. It was bought in 1962, but it was never developed.
The Lisa Marie jet and the Hound Dog II planes were an important addition to the development for visitors to the Graceland Mansion. Vernon Presley had sold the two planes in 1978, but the Elvis Presley Enterprise bought them back and opened them up to visitors to Graceland in 1984. The Elvis’s Automobile Museum was another major development for Graceland and it opened in 1989.
The Graceland Mansion has grown into a very profitable tourist attraction. Graceland Crossing was constructed in the late 1980s. It is a shopping center containing stored that have items related to Elvis. Until Graceland bought it in 1997, it had been privately owned.
Graceland then purchased an existing hotel near the mansion. It was remodeled and updated and in 1999 it was appropriately named Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel. The Graceland Mansion continues to grow and expand the visitor facilities. New Elvis exhibitions to the Graceland complex are in the planning stage. From the time the Graceland Mansion opened in 1982, it has seen millions of Elvis fans from all over the entire world.
The opening of the mansion benefited the Memphis tourist trade. Before it opened there was very little tourism in Memphis. The Graceland Mansion became the foundation of the tourist industry in and around this Tennessee city.