The uncertain future of Graceland, Elvis' million-making machine

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Elvis Presley bought his

mansion on March 19, 1957 for $102,500, which today would be about 990,000 euros.

thanks to the approximately 650,000 visitors who pass through the complex of buildings and gardens, and in which rooms are even rented for those who want to sleep in the same building where the King of Rock did for decades (although, judging by the singer's biographies, he rarely slept there, and even less at night).

With a turnover of 10 million dollars a year and annual expenses -- including taxes -- of barely half a million, according to estimates from the financial magazine '

', 'Graceland' is a very healthy company.

And now, the owner of Graceland, Lisa Marie Presley, has died.

Which raises a question that is not only economic, but cultural: who is going to get the mansion?

And, above all, what will happen to the property, which measures

that is, about ten soccer fields?

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The answer to the first question seems clear.

Graceland is to be owned by Lisa Marie's three living daughters:

In principle, that means that everything will remain the same.

Or so the '

' of Graceland maintains.

"Nothing is going to change in operations or management," a representative of the deceased told the

.

Thus, at least in theory, everything is "tied and well tied", to use an expression that in Spain has political connotations -and unfulfilled prophecy- when starting on Sunday the body of Lisa Marie rests forever next to the of her son Benjamin Keough, who committed suicide in 2020, when he was only 27 years old, and to whom she dedicated an essay just six months ago in the

magazine '

'.

In other sections of the complex, Elvis, his parents, and his grandmother are buried.

From what has come out in the American press, Graceland is managed by a

, formed by Lisa Marie, who was the one who inherited the property at the age of 25.

But there are two minority partners.

One, her mother

The other, SunTrust, one of the largest regional banks in the southern United States.

Legally, Lisa Marie owned it.

And she said so 9 years ago in an interview:

But in practice, her mother, Priscilla, seems to have been the one who turned Graceland into the money-making machine that it is.

Keep in mind that Lisa Marie squandered a considerable amount of her inheritance, and it was only Graceland's transformation into a professionally run business that saved it from ruin.

Keep in mind that in 2004, Lisa Marie had to sell 85% of the company Elvis Presley Enterprises, which had been founded by her father to manage his music and film assets to avoid ruin, although she wisely retained control. of Graceland.

So Graceland is going to pass from the daughter to three granddaughters, two of whom are minors.

That has aroused all kinds of speculation in the United States about the future of the mansion, especially since Priscilla, who, from the background, maintains a more than considerable influence in the management of Elvis' estate, is now 77 years old.

There remains, furthermore, a question: what was the financial situation of Lisa Marie?

Theoretically, her estate was healthy.

But with

, there's always the risk of bankruptcy lurking behind the gilt faucets or private jets.

Precisely, Graceland can be a good asset to '

' but, also, it is a

' that generates 9.5 million dollars in profit, although it is not true that it is not the same that it generates them for only one --Lisa Maria-- than for three --Rileigh , Harper and Finley-- .

Graceland may be a rock investor's dream.

But it can also attract some of the Wall Street giants, such as Blackstone or KKR, which has tried, unsuccessfully, to buy the catalog

of the English group

, and have paid similar figures for Bruce Springsteen's. , Paul Simon, or Bob Dylan.

But Graceland is more than just an amusement park or a celebrity museum.

Because Elvis was much more than a '

'.

So his residence is sort of a secular sanctuary for America's white lower-middle and middle class.

Memphis, the city where he is, is one of the music capitals of the US, like Nashville -also in Tennessee- or New Orleans.

It has its area of ​​bars with live music for beer-thirsty tourists --Beale Street--,

where they recorded, literally, the 'Who's who' of rock and roll--, and it also has its blues nightclubs in the Mississippi Delta, which begins precisely in that city, where the crowd, unlike in the other places, is often mostly black.

Of course, it doesn't matter why you visit Memphis: there is an unavoidable part of the trip.

Whether out of admiration, morbidity or simply curiosity, the part that no one can avoid is a visit to Graceland, with headphones that explain the daily life of the man who popularized musical genres that until then had been '

' thanks to a charisma and a instinct for fusion that would probably have been banned today by the guardians of political correctness on the grounds that it was

Now, that entire complex is in the hands of the third generation, who no longer even bear the last name "Presley" and who share a mother, but no father.

Graceland, the sanctuary --and, also, the mausoleum-- of Elvis --and of much of the culture of the United States-- enters a new phase.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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