Most people who tour Graceland walk right past it.
There’s a small hallway next to the kitchen, the one that leads toward the famous Jungle Room. Visitors on the tour pass through it on their way. And in that hallway there’s a small drawer that doesn’t look like much at all.
Angie Marchese knows better. She’s Graceland’s archivist, the person who looks after Elvis’s collection. During one of Graceland’s live virtual tours, she stopped at that drawer, opened it up and showed fans what was inside.
It was a handwritten note from Lisa Marie Presley.
Lisa Marie, Elvis and Priscilla’s daughter, lived at Graceland with her parents in her early years, and she kept coming back to the house over the years. Her daughter, actress Riley Keough, has said her mom “loved coming to Graceland” and “loved the fans.”
Riley talked about her mom and Graceland with host Joel Weinshanker on SiriusXM’s “Inside Graceland,” and it’s the warmest way to hear what the house meant to her family.
Riley Keough talks about her mom and Graceland
So what did the note say?
According to reports from DoYouRemember? and Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Lisa Marie wrote three words: “Lisa’s home Graceland.” And right next to them, she drew a smiley face.
That’s the whole message. Lisa Marie once wrote it and it ended up in that drawer, and the reports don’t say when. Short as it is, it tells you how she felt about the place. To the rest of the world Graceland was Elvis’s mansion, and to her it was home.
Marchese didn’t stop with the note, either. The same drawer held a phone book from 1993. It belonged to Elvis’s Aunt Delta Mae, who lived at Graceland until 1993.
It’s a funny pair to find side by side. An old phone book and a happy little note with a smiley face would fit in almost any kitchen drawer in America. This one was just a few steps from the Jungle Room.
Lisa Marie had a sense of humor about her own childhood there, too. Years later, on “The Talk” in 2013, she said of her dad, “He was not strict at all. I was truthfully a terror, to be honest.”
Graceland began offering live virtual VIP tours in January 2021, which let fans at home see corners of the house they might never notice in person. That drawer turned out to be one of them.
The family’s things are still part of Graceland’s story. CBS News caught Oprah Winfrey’s reaction to personal items from Elvis’s black box, with Riley right there inside the house.
Oprah and Riley inside Graceland with Elvis’s personal things
Graceland’s archivist showed the note on a live virtual tour, and outlets were still writing about it in 2024. If you ever take the tour, slow down a little in that hallway by the kitchen. It’s where Lisa Marie’s three words were found.