Sold: Elvis Presley's house goes for $905,100
Tue May 16, 2006 9:34 AM ET
By Michael Conlon

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Psychic Uri Geller and two partners have bought the
Tennessee house Elvis Presley lived in before moving to Graceland, with
a winning bid of $905,100 on eBay, he said on Monday.
"We are unbelievably pleased. This is a piece of history," Geller said
by phone from England.
"We intend to restore it to its old glory. We would like to bring sick
children there (for tours), Palestinian children, Israeli children,
American children," the Israeli-born Geller said. "Hopefully one day we
might get approval to turn it into a museum."

Presley bought the four-bedroom, two-bath house at 1034 Audubon Drive in
Memphis in 1956 with a down payment of $500. He lived there for 13
months before moving to Graceland, the now-famous Memphis estate where
he died in 1977.
During his time in the white, ranch-style house with an outdoor swimming
pool, Presley's career took off with hits such as "All Shook Up" and
"Don't be cruel."

Geller identified the sellers as Mike and Cindy Hazen, who bought the
house some years ago, though not from Presley, for about $180,000.
Geller had original bid $300,000 last month but a bidding war ensued and
the price ballooned, he said. During the process he was approached by
dozens of people wanting to go in with him, he said. He chose two, New
York lawyer Pete Gleason and Lisbeth Silvandersson, a Swedish-born
jewelry maker who lives in England, as equal partners.

He had set a ceiling price of $1.11 million, said Geller, who
acknowledges a paranormal fascination with the number 11.
"As the clock closed on the bidding Sunday," Geller said, "I felt
intuitively I got the price. I was text messaging Gleason and it was
exactly 11 on my mobile phone and suddenly the radio started playing an
Elvis song. That was Elvis telling me we got the house!"

Geller met Presley in Las Vegas in the 1970s after the "King of Rock and
Roll" asked him to perform his "spoon bending" trick for him, he said.
Since then he has amassed a large collection of Presley memorabilia, he
said.