“Hello Miss Grant, this is Presley”

On November 15, 2011, in This Month in Real Estate History, by Frederik Heller

by Russell Carlson, Information Specialist

Virginia Grant in 1957

From the NAR Archives: Virginia Grant recognized the woman sitting in a large pink Cadillac in front of the trendy Lowenstein’s East Department store in early 1957. Grant had seen the woman’s photograph in the newspaper and recognized her. It was Elvis Presley’s mother.

The Memphis REALTOR® (and member of the Women’s Council of the National Association of Real Estate Boards) engaged in some friendly conversation with Mrs. Presley, and was able to confirm a rumor heard in Memphis real estate circles. The Presleys wanted to buy, perhaps “a few acres with a large house, not too far out of town.”

Grant suggested a property of thirteen acres on Highway 51 and mentioned it to the lady. The Presleys were pressed for time. That night they would be leaving for Hollywood to visit their son for a month. Mr. Presley was in Lowenstein’s purchasing luggage for the trip. “Would you give me your card and write the address and a bit of a description on the back, so I can tell Elvis when we get to Hollywood?” Grant was happy to do so.

A month later the phone rang in her office. “Hello Miss Grant, this is Presley. Wonder if it would be convenient to show me the property you told Mom and Dad about?” Miss Grant made the time to do so. A six figure price was eventually arranged by Virginia and another REALTOR® who worked for the owners of Graceland.

“But for the Grace of God,” she said in the September 1957 issue of the Women’s Council newsletter, What Women Realtors Are Doing, “I might never have been at Lowenstein’s East and met the lovely Mrs. Presley, in exactly the way in which I described to you.”