Graceland, Former Home of Vegas Icon Elvis Presley, Nearly Goes to Auction

Posted on: May 21, 2024, 12:46h. 

Last updated on: September 22, 2024, 01:14h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.

A public auction for Graceland, the longtime home of late Las Vegas icon Elvis Presley, was scheduled to take place Thursday. That was before Riley Keough succeeded in temporarily stopping it.

Elvis Presley, age 22, poses in front of Graceland shortly after purchasing the 13-acre Memphis property in 1957. (Image: Getty)

The 34-year-old actress was granted a temporary restraining order against the sale by filing suit in a Tennessee civil court last week. Keough inherited Graceland, along with the rest of her late grandfather’s estate, through a trust after her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, died in January 2023 at age 54.

Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC, owned by financier Kurt Naussany, claims title to the iconic, 13-acre estate because, it claims, a $3.8 million loan taken out by Lisa Marie in 2018, using Graceland as collateral, was never repaid. Naussany Investments posted a public notice for a foreclosure sale earlier this month.

Return to Sender

Riley Keough eulogizes her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, in front of Graceland on Jan. 22, 2023. (Image: Page Six)

In her suit, Keough claims her mother never borrowed any money from Naussany, nor gave it a deed of trust. Her lawsuit alleges that the documents Naussany first presented in September 2023 “are fraudulent” and that Naussany Investments “is not a real entity” — that it was “created for the purpose of defrauding” Keough and the Promenade Trust, through which she owns Graceland.

According to the court filing, first reported on Tuesday by the Associated Press, the notary listed on the documents claims never to have even met Lisa Marie or notarized any documents for her.

“Elvis Presley Enterprises can confirm that these claims are fraudulent,” wrote the company that manages the Graceland museum in a statement. “There is no foreclosure sale. Simply put, the counter lawsuit has been filed is to stop the fraud.”

An injunction hearing is scheduled for Wednesday in Shelby County Chancery Court.

Graceland opened as a museum and tourist attraction in 1982 as a tribute to Elvis Presley, who died in 1977 at age 42. It draws hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, and its former meditation garden is the final resting place of Elvis, his parents, and his stillborn identical twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley — as well as Lisa Marie Presley and her second child, Benjamin Keough.