NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Elvis Presley's Graceland.
Paul Simon sang about going there to ease an aching heart in 1986 on a Grammy-winning album titled, well, “Graceland." A year later, Philadelphia punk band The Dead Milkmen wrote their own song about a trip to Graceland that was decidedly less reverent, with lyrics like, “Goin’ to Graceland/It’s gonna be fun/We’ll get to see all Elvis’s guns.”
Maybe Graceland is all things to all people.
Elvis bought the large Classical revival home on about 14 acres of farmland in 1957, moving in with his mother, father and grandmother. Later came his wife Priscilla and then daughter Lisa Marie. From the beginning, the home was accessible to the public, right there on Highway 51 South, now known as Elvis Presley Boulevard. The distinctive wrought-iron gates decorated with musical notes and guitar players resembling Elvis are pretty much a giveaway.
Bruce Springsteen tells a story of jumping over the wall in the 1970s in hopes of meeting Elvis. He wasn't home at the time, but if he had been, he might have allowed the visit. Elvis was known to watch for fans on the security cameras and go down to the gates to sign autographs.
When Elvis died at Graceland in 1977, mourners lined up outside the walls in a spontaneous vigil. They came back the next year and the next. After the home was opened to tours in 1982, they were finally able to enter the gates and file past Elvis' grave.
Yes, Elvis is buried at Graceland — right in the yard — along with his parents, grandmother, daughter and grandson.
Today we take Graceland as a pilgrimage site for granted, but stepping back for a second it seems rather odd. The homes of most other celebrities aren’t thronged by adoring fans, certainly not half a century after their deaths. Maybe it's the way Elvis' mythology is so entwined with his Memphis house?
"Such a strong association between a man and his home is unique and unprecedented in the 20th century" is the way a 2006 application for National Historic Landmark status put it. (Spoiler alert: They got it.)
Then there's the name: Graceland.
Although Elvis didn't name the house himself, it's hard to imagine his legacy would be the same if he had lived at “Presleyland,” or that Paul Simon would have waxed poetic about going to “The Elvis Mansion.”
As Simon so aptly put it: ”I’ve reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland.”
Part of a recurring series, “American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more American objects, click here. For more stories on the anniversary, click here.
FILE - A street memorial is lit during a candlelight vigil for Elvis Presley in front of Graceland, Presley's Memphis home, on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Brandon Dill, File)
FILE - Elvis Presley with his girlfriend, Yvonne Lime, are photographed at his home, Graceland, in Memphis, Tenn., around 1957. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Fans wait in line outside Graceland, Elvis Presley's Memphis home, Aug. 15, 2017, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Brandon Dill, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A wealthy couple in suburban Los Angeles recruited women across the country to serve as surrogates, promising them that they were just looking for another child to grow their family.
Instead, prosecutors say, the couple used several surrogates at the same time, amassed a brood of 21 children — some as young as 2 months — and raised them in a “house of horrors” where they suffered daily beatings at the hands of cruel nannies as the couple watched and laughed from a network of surveillance cameras.
Guojun Xuan, 66, and Silvia Zhang, 39, were arrested Tuesday at their home in Arcadia, a city about 13 miles (20 kilometers) northeast of downtown Los Angeles.
The couple face several counts of child abuse as well as conspiracy to commit child abuse, accessory after the fact and dissuading a witness, according to Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman.
“This case is unprecedented. It is horrific,” he said during a morning news conference. “The physical abuse, beating and punishment that these very young children received is despicable.”
Prosecutors were seeking $100 million bail for the couple because of the serious nature of the charges and because they are flight risks, Hochman said. They were scheduled to be arraigned at the Pasadena courthouse later in the day.
Fifteen children were removed from the opulent home last year after an allegation of abuse, and another six living elsewhere were also located. They ranged in age from 2 months to 13 years, with most between 1 and 3. Police believe Zhang gave birth to one or two of the children, while the rest were carried and delivered by surrogates.
Hochman said the couple set up an agency, Mark Surrogacy, that they operated from home and used to hire surrogates throughout the U.S. But prosecutors said the couple misled the women, telling some that they could not conceive and others that they only had one child and wanted one more to complete their family.
“The house could only be described as a house of horrors for these incredible young children,” Hochman said.
Zhang and Xuan were first arrested in May 2025 after a hospital reported that their 2-month-old infant had a traumatic head injury, the result of being violently shaken by a nanny, according to Arcadia police.
Police did not file charges at the time, saying they needed to complete the investigation.
Hochman said the couple set up three rooms they called learning centers, where the children spent several hours a day sitting at desks under the supervision of nannies.
Through an extensive surveillance system including motion-activated cameras, the couple watched as the nannies physically abused the children, including daily beatings, he said.
In one video, Xuan is shown entering a room and telling a nanny to strike a child harder, Hochman said, and in another he joins the nanny in hitting the child.
The nannies were allegedly told “not to leave any physical marks on the children,” and when police arrived to investigate in May 2025, the children were told to deny they had been beaten.
After examining the surveillance video, police issued an arrest warrant for Chunmei Li, the nanny seen hurting the 2-month-old infant, but she could not be found.
Hochman said “there will be a reckoning” for the defendants, one of whom faces more than 17 years in prison if convicted.
When asked about the couple’s motivation, Hochman said that was part of the investigation, as was the parentage of each child.
Mitchell Krems, Xuan’s attorney, previously told ABC7 that Xuan’s goal was to raise children who become productive adults.
“The reason he has all these children is because he wants them to contribute to society. He is not a man who is self-indulgent,” Krems said. “Some who are wealthy might spend on jewelry or cars, but he is actually spending his resources to help his children become educated so that they can be the philosophers, the physicians, the researchers and the inventors that help society.”
Krems did not immediately respond Tuesday to an email seeking comment.
Surrogacy is an arrangement in which a woman agrees to carry and deliver a child for another person or couple, often after an embryo transfer.
There is no comprehensive federal law regulating surrogacy, leaving most rules to the states.
California is considered a “surrogacy-friendly state” because it has clear laws governing the process. Both sides are required to have lawyers, and there must be a written, notarized contract before an embryo transfer takes place.
Investigators have said they were looking into whether the couple misled surrogates around the country and at least eight women came forward to say they were aggressively pursued to serve as surrogates.
The women, many of them first-time surrogates, said they were given misleading or incomplete information about the couple’s family situation and intentions.
At least one, Kayla Elliott, is now trying to get custody of a baby she birthed for the couple.
Marcelo reported from New York.
FILE - An aerial view shows the home of Silvia Zhang and Guojun Xuan on July 16, 2025, in Arcadia, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
