Big spend to spruce up Elvis Presley's mansion

Every year, 600,000 people pay as much as $74 (Rs 4,681 approx.) to tour Elvis Presley's Memphis mansion, gaping at animal skulls, stainedglass peacocks and the lime-green shag carpet on the Jungle Room's floor.

Now a development authority plans to sell as much as $125 million (Rs 790 crore approx.) in bonds in January to finance improvements at Graceland. They're counting on the curious to keep streaming to the privately owned estate for decades, generating sales, property and special tourism taxes to pay the debt over as long as 30 years.

A 450-room hotel and conference centre, restaurants, a theatre, and as much as seven acres (2.8 hectares) of retail and exhibit space are envisioned. The improvements will "preserve the incomparable legacy of Elvis Presley, The Icon and The Man", say documents detailing the plan.

"We want to solidify the Elvis brand, give it a new sheen and polish," said Reid Dulberger, chief executive of the Economic Development Growth Engine for Memphis and Shelby County, which wil l issue the bonds in a private placement. The facilities "were old and tired," he said. "Our concern was that we wouldn't continue to see the kind of return visits that we see year after year from the faithful."

Presley bought Graceland in 1957, and decorated it with gaudy verve.The Jungle Room includes monkey statues, a stone wall with ivy and a mammoth coffee table of petrified wood.

The pleated fabric ceiling of the billiards room drapes above the game table like an upside-down sofa pillow. Television screens line the media room. Presley died in a Graceland bathroom at 42 in 1977 and is buried next to his parents near the swimming pool. His daughter, Lisa Marie, owns the estate.