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| By Associated Press May 18, 2006 |
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| Elvis Presley's first home sits in a quiet area in Memphis, Tenn., in this Sept. 23, 2005, file photo. (AP) |
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Celebrity psychic Uri Geller said he got a sign from Elvis Presley, and the message was loud and clear: "Don't worry, you'll have my house."
Geller, who had the winning bid of $905,100 for a house Presley lived in as his career was taking off, said he was traveling to London in the closing moments of the eBay auction Sunday when the radio began playing, "Love Me Tender."
He said he knew then that it was a done deal.
Presley bought the four-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot (270-square-meter) house in 1956 with his early song royalties. The singer, his parents and grandmother lived there for 13 months before moving to a two-story colonial house already known as Graceland, the house that Elvis would make famous.
Geller, an Israeli who lives outside London, is buying the house with two partners: Peter Gleason, a New York attorney and retired firefighter, and Lisbeth Silvandersson, a jewelry maker who lives in England.
They plan to restore the four-bedroom home it to its original splendor and bring sick children from Palestine, Israel and America to see it. He hopes for permission to make it into a museum.
Geller said he met Presley in the 1970s and "freaked him out" with his spoon bending. Geller became a celebrity in the '70s for his alleged power to bend spoons and other objects with his mind.
Current owners Cindy Hazen and Mike Freeman bought the home in 1998 for $180,000. The couple, who have co-authored two books about Presley, said the house is far more historically significant than Graceland.
A month after the singer moved in, "Heartbreak Hotel" hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts, ultimately ending any privacy he had in the neighborhood. Fans lined the neighborhood streets and police frequently had to be called in.
A Life magazine article from August 1956 had pictures of teenage girls sitting with their ears pressed to his bedroom wall and picking through the grass in his yard for souvenirs. The commotion became so intense that Elvis moved his bedroom to the back of the house.
While Presley lived in the home, he appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, starred in "Love Me Tender," bought his pink Cadillac and posed in his gold lame suit.
Hazen and Freeman have partly restored it and uncovered the wallpaper printed with musical notes and instruments Presley added in the hall.
The porch the singer converted into a game room and where he rehearsed and recorded remains as it was, with star-shaped lighting fixtures and trophy cases.
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