Before the gold records and the big house on the hill, Elvis Presley was just a teenager in a two-bedroom apartment in Memphis. The address was 185 Winchester Street, apartment 328, in a housing project called Lauderdale Courts. The Presleys lived there from the fall of 1949 to early 1953, and the rent was $35 a month.
That was real money for a young family getting by on very little. The Memphis Housing Authority came around every month to inspect the place. A biographer named Peter Guralnick, who has written some of the most respected books about Elvis, once said, “The whole feel of Lauderdale Courts was upward mobility.” For the Presleys it was a step up, and they knew it.
Elvis lived there through most of his years at Humes High School, which he finished in 1953. A shy kid with a guitar, walking those same halls and sidewalks years before the world knew his name.
The courts were built back in the 1930s, one of the first federal housing projects in the whole country. By the 1990s the old buildings were nearly torn down. They were saved at the last minute and fixed up in 2000, then reopened as apartments called Uptown Square. When the work was done, they kept Elvis’s old unit almost exactly as it had been.
Step inside and it looks like 1952 never left.
There’s 1950s furniture, an old refrigerator from the era, and his Humes High yearbook sitting out for anyone to see. One bedroom wall is covered in lipstick kisses left by visitors over the years, under a little sign that reads “Kisses Only Please No Writing.”
So what would it cost to actually sleep in a room like that? Back in 2022, Fox TV stations reported, citing a story in The Sun, that fans could book a night in the restored apartment. One night ran $250. As Fox 13 put it, “A one-night stay in the apartment will cost $250, according to the Sun’s report back in January.”
Think about that for a second. The Presleys paid $35 for a whole month. In 2022 a single night cost $250. That’s more than seven months of their old rent, for one evening in Elvis’s teenage bedroom.
The Chicago Sun-Times summed it up nicely years ago: “And now you can sleep in Elvis’ teenage bedroom.”
It’s a sweet turn for a family that once counted every dollar. The same small rooms where a quiet boy sat dreaming about music became a place fans travel across the country just to see. Prices and bookings change over the years, so anyone hoping to visit should check what’s being offered now.
Read the full story of the $35 rent, the $250 night and everything still waiting inside that little apartment below.