Gold Elvis Presley Piano Finds New Home in Tampa
16 Jul 2019
Big news for Tampa’s Hard Rock Cafe (where we’ve done some recent installation work, wink wink) – they recently unveiled a new rock and roll memento – Elvis Presley’s 24-karat gold plated lead piano.
This ‘crown jewel’ is part of the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino’s new $720 million expansion and is sure to draw crowds.
We’ve move a lot of expensive office furniture over the years, with some Tampa office spaces having hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of desks, conference room tables and chairs. But, we’ve never moved anything quite so valuable, historical and…gold plated….like this.
As professional movers, we tip our caps to the guys who moved and installed this piano. We’re sure they’re pretty good at what they do too.
From the July 11 article on TampaBay.com:
Built in 1928, the W.W. Kimball grand was purchased by Elvis for his mother in 1955, shortly before Heartbreak Hotel hit No. 1. The singer’s wife Priscilla Presley had it gilded with gold leaf as a first anniversary gift in 1968. After his death, a collector purchased the piano for $2 million and loaned it to the Country Music Hall of Fame, where it sat on display for more than two decades.
In 2015, the Hard Rock purchased the piano at auction for a price they won’t disclose (auction records list it as $610,000), crowing via press release that it was the company’s 80,000th item of memorabilia, and Tampa was the favorite to get it.
Rather than chucking the piano into an existing corner or corridor, the company designed and built a lavish, museum-like atrium all around it.
Or watch the video of the unveiling here – by Fox 13 Tampa.
