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Uri Geller loses out on Elvis house

BBC, UK
June 3, 2006
news.bbc.co.uk

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Monday June 5, 2006

Celebrity spoon-bender Uri Geller has discovered a house he bought on eBay, formerly owned by Elvis Presley, has been sold to someone else.

The vendors have now sold the property, which Presley lived in before he moved to Graceland, to a foundation set up by music producer Mike Curb.

Geller made a winning bid for the Tennessee house of $905,100 (£481,000) on eBay in May.

“We are absolutely, mind-blown angry. Of course we’re going to sue,” he said.

It is not known how much Curb paid to the sellers, a married couple, for the four-bedroom home which Presley bought in 1956 with royalties from Heartbreak Hotel.

The rules of auction website eBay may make it difficult for Geller and his two business partners, lawyer Pete Gleason and jewellery-maker Lisbeth Silvandersson, to pursue a breach of contract claim.

“The platform we provide in real estate really serves to generate interest,” said eBay spokeswoman Catherine England.

“It isn’t a legally binding contract,” she added.

Geller had been planning to turn the house into a museum for the public.

After the eBay auction last month, Geller said he was delighted.

“We are unbelievably pleased. This is a piece of history,” he said at the time.

Geller met Presley in Las Vegas in the 1970s when the rock ‘n’ roll star asked him to perform his spoon-bending trick.

Presley lived in the home with his parents and grandmother but only stayed for a year because his career began to take off and police were frequently called to handle the crowds of fans outside.

In the short time that Presley lived there, he had a granite swimming pool installed in the garden, which at 15 metres (50 feet) in length was the largest residential pool in the city at the time.

He also added a den and housed his motorcycles in a separate building. The hall contains original wallpaper adorned with musical notes, which was uncovered during renovations.

A Life magazine article published five months after Presley bought the house contained pictures of teenage girls sitting with their ears pressed to his bedroom wall.

They were also picking through the grass in his garden for souvenirs.

In March 1957, Presley moved to Graceland, the home with which he would become synonymous.