1554 UNITED STATES (Tennessee) - Graceland

Graceland is a mansion in Memphis (located at 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard in the vast Whitehaven community, at about 15 km from Downtown and less than 6km north of the Mississippi border), that was home to Elvis Presley, "the King". It was opened to the public in 1982, and meantime has become one of the most-visited private homes in America, with over 600,000 visitors a year, behind the White House. Elvis Presley died at the estate on August 16, 1977. Presley, his parents Gladys and Vernon Presley, and his grandmother, are buried there in what is called the Meditation Garden. A memorial gravestone for Presley's stillborn twin brother, Jesse Garon, is also at the site.

Constructed at the top of a hill, in a grove of oaks, with rolling pastures surrounding, the house designed by Memphis architectural firm, Furbringer and Erhmanis, is a two-story, five bay residence in the Colonial Revival style, with a central two-story projecting pedimented portico, and one-story wings on its north and south sides. Four stone steps, flanked by two lions, ascend from the driveway to the central portico containing four Corinthian columns with capitals modeled after James Stuart's conjectural porticos for the Tower of the Winds in Athens.

Graceland Farms was originally owned by Stephen C. Toof, founder of S.C. Toof & Co., the oldest commercial printing firm in Memphis. The grounds were named after Toof's daughter, Grace, who inherited the farm in 1894. After her death the property was passed down to her niece Ruth Moore, a Memphis socialite, who built a Colonial Revival style mansion in 1939. Presley purchased Graceland (at the time, located several km beyond Memphis's main urban area) on March 19, 1957 for the amount of $102,500. The Graceland grounds include a museum across the street from the mansion, containing many Elvis artifacts, like some of his famous Vegas jumpsuits, awards, gold records, and his extensive auto collection, which includes Elvis' Pink Cadillac.

About the stamp
About the first stamp, featuring a portrait of George Washington, I wrote here.The second stamp is the one issued in 2013 for celebrating Kwanzaa, about which I wrote here.

References
Graceland - Wikipedia

Sender: Denise 
Sent from Greenvale (New York / United States), on 04.08.2014