In March of 1957 Elvis' parents Vernon and Gladys Presley were looking for a
larger and more private home than the one they and Elvis were living in on
Audubon Drive. They found Graceland on what was then the outskirts of south
Memphis. When Elvis returned from filming "Loving You", he went to see Graceland
and also fell in love with it.
They put down a $1,000 deposit on March 19, 1957 and finalized the purchase on
March 25th, paying a total of $102,500 for 13.8 acres of land and the 10,000
square foot home. Renovations soon began, including the building of the stone
wall around the property and the installation of the musical-themed iron gates.
(With Elvis' additions the house has 17,552 square feet of living space under
the roof today. This does not include any outbuildings such as Vernon's office
or the racquetball building.) Vernon and Gladys, along with Elvis' grandmother
Minnie Mae Presley, moved in on May 16, 1957 while Elvis was still in Hollywood
filming "Jailhouse Rock".
Elvis purchased the home from Mrs. Ruth Brown Moore. Her grandfather was S.C.
Toof, a Memphis businessman and founder of a printing firm established in
Memphis in 1864. S.C.'s daughter, Grace Toof Ward, originally purchased 323
acres in Whitehaven in 1894. Grace's mother Mary B. Toof purchased an additional
157 adjoining acres in 1901. This 480 acres of land remained in the family and
was undeveloped. It was used for parties and outings. It ran from what then was
Hernando Road (today's Elvis Presley Boulevard) east to Millbranch and from
Raines Road north to the then S.N. Ford land, which started at about what today
is called Winchester Road. In 1939, Ruth Toof Brown, sister to Grace, and her
husband Battle Manassas Brown were the owners of the land. (At this writing we
do not know what happened to Grace and why she had no heirs.) They divided it up
between their three children, Ruth Brown Moore, Stephan Toof Brown and Richard
Bates Brown. Richard and his wife sold their 1/3 to Stephen, while Ruth retained
her 1/3 which amounted to 158.45 acres in the northernmost section of this land.
Ruth Brown Moore and her husband Dr. Thomas D. Moore built Graceland Mansion and
named it and the cattle farm they have as Graceland Farms in honor of her Aunt
Grace. The architects were Max Furbringer and Merrill Ehrman. The builder was
Robert Crouch.
Ruth Brown Moore was a Memphis socialite. She attended Wellesley and Smith
College in Massachusetts and traveled abroad. She was a member of historical and
antiquities organizations, the Symphony League, book clubs and garden clubs. Dr.
Thomas D. Moore was a professor of urology at UT College of Medicine and
president of staff at Baptist Memorial Hospital in 1949, as well as head of the
urology department at John Gaston Hospital. He was also the first president of
the Mid-South Hereford Breeder Association which was organized in 1940. Dr. and
Mrs. Moore were married in 1925 and divorced in 1952. They had a daughter, Ruth
Moore Cobb, who was a harpist with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. Mrs. Cobb was
about twelve years old when her parents started building Graceland. What is now
the living room was her music room and her harp was a prominent feature of that
room. What Elvis called the music room was then a sun porch utilizing the french
doors on both sides. In the basement, what Elvis turned into the pool room was
Mrs. Cobb's library where she studied her school work.
After Dr. and Mrs. Moore divorced, Mrs. Moore allowed a local church group to
use her property for gatherings until they could build a church on the adjoining
land. (The congregation eventually left that building, which was purchased by
Graceland/EPE in the late 1980s and now serves as the company's main corporate
offices.) The home had been vacant when Elvis first saw it and he had no problem
with the church being next door, which Mrs. Cobb recalled was one of the reasons
her mother chose Elvis as the buyer over other offers she had received.
Today the gracious Greek revival house on the hill surrounded by tall stately
trees is on an oasis of land along a very busy Memphis street. Graceland and it
famous music gates are widely recognized around the world. Graceland was placed
on the American National Register of Historic Places in 1991.