Most people picture Graceland when they think of Elvis Presley, the Memphis singer who more or less invented rock and roll for a whole generation. But he had a second home he loved, and it sat a long way from Tennessee.
In the spring of 1970, Elvis and his wife Priscilla bought a white, Spanish-style house in Palm Springs, California. It cost about $105,000. Sources differ a little on the exact figure, so “about” is the honest word here. He put $20,000 down, took a loan for the rest and signed the papers on April 14.
He kept that house for the rest of his life.
Elvis being Elvis, he couldn’t leave it alone. He added around 2,000 square feet, including an extra bedroom, a sauna and a big room for entertaining. He even had the outdoor spa covered with a gazebo, and the reason was pure Elvis. He wanted a roof over it so helicopters couldn’t hover and snap photos of him relaxing.
The agent who sold the place years later, Eric Meeks, kept it simple. “He also added an additional bedroom,” Meeks told NBC News. The LA Times once described the home in a way that fit its owner. “It was a party house for Elvis.”
The best part came three years later.
In September 1973, Elvis didn’t feel like driving to a studio, so the studio came to him. His record company, RCA, hauled recording gear right into the living room of the Palm Springs house. Over a two-day session they taped songs including “Are You Sincere,” “I Miss You” and “Sweet Angeline.” To make a regular room sound right, RCA put special acoustic tile up on the living room ceiling. A visitor who toured the house in 2012 wrote that the panels were still there, though that was before the home sold again a couple of years later.
So Elvis made real records under that ceiling, in his own front room, with the desert heat just outside the windows.
Then there’s the price.
The house he bought for about $105,000 sold for $1.25 million in the early 2000s, and then again in 2014 for $1.5 million. That’s more than 14 times what he paid for it.
One quick thing, because people mix these up. This Palm Springs house on Chino Canyon Road is not the famous “Honeymoon Hideaway” over on Ladera Circle. Elvis only leased that one, back in 1967. The Chino Canyon house is the one he actually owned, and the one with the ceiling story.
Photos of the living room from 2009 and 2014 are floating around online, and they’re worth a look if you want to see the room where he sang.