August 16th will be the 33rd anniversary of Elvis’ death, and I thought what better way to celebrate “Weep Week” than to write about Elvis Real Estate.

Reno Fontana lives in one of two homes owned by Elvis when he died. The first, of course, is Graceland in Memphis. The second is the home in Palm Springs on Chino Canyon Road that Elvis and Priscilla bought on April 14, 1970.

When Reno and then wife Laura were looking for a bigger house, he was thumbing through real estate magazines on a Friday night when he saw the Chino Canyon home listed. He called at 9 a.m. on Saturday. “Is it really Elvis’ house?” he asked. Assured it was, he responded, “I’ll be right there, and I am buying it.” He bought the house sight unseen for $1,275,000.

“When we moved in, within a matter of hours on the first day people were stopping by taking pictures,” Fontana relates. “We were so thrilled to say, ‘Would you like to come in and see the house?”‘ The Fontanas don’t share most homeowners’ objection to having a lot of strangers coming into their house. “Even though we own the house, we like to think we are caretakers,” Reno says. “It’s open for Elvis fans.”

For the first few months, they invited people in for free. One day, after touring the home, a gentleman said, “It’s really gracious of you, but here’s $50.” After that, the Fontanas fully realized the value of what they had. Ninety percent of the furnishings belonged to Elvis. “You are not just seeing a house he used to live in. You are seeing a real part of his life,” Fontana says.

Because of his dedication to Elvis and Elvis fans, Fontana has researched and gotten confirmation from people who knew Elvis, and obtained written authentication whenever possible. He has a copy of the house title signed by Elvis and Priscilla Presley in 1970, when they bought it for $85,000. The Presleys were not the only famous owners. In 1960, McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc purchased the house; and in 1981, Frankie Valli bought it for $750,000. In 1986, Valli sold it to a Japanese corporation for $2.2 million. From then until the Fontanas purchased it, the home was open for a few weeks.

Elvis Chino Canyon Road on Zillow

The house on Chino Canyon Road is not the only piece of real estate that Elvis enjoyed in Palm Springs.

In 1967, Elvis and Priscilla were to be married by the pool in the backyard of the house. But the arrival of friends and family tipped off then-leading gossip columnist Rona Barrett (who also lived in the neighborhood) that a wedding was imminent. As the media descended upon the house, Elvis and Priscilla changed plans, deciding to get married in Vegas. In the middle of the night, they snuck into an alley behind the house, where a limo took them to Frank Sinatra’s learjet. They were married in the Aladdin Hotel.

The next day they returned to honeymoon in the Palm Springs house, which is how it got its nickname as the “Elvis Honeymoon House.”

Zillow’s estimate of Elvis’ Honeymoon House

A Luau Birthday Celebration at the

Official Bad Art Museum of Art

Wednesday, August 4th, 7:pm – Cafe Racer/OBAMA
5828 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle WA 98105

Cafe Racer specials featuring Food and Drink of the Islands

Music by The Ukadelics

Wednesday August 4th is the birthday of President Obama, and because Obama is a native of Honolulu, Hawaii, and because we at O.B.A.M.A. are looking for an excuse to have a party, and celebrate the Hawaiian and Tiki Culture, we’re having a Luau inspired party to celebrate OBAMA! Wear a muu-muu or Aloha shirt, have a fruity cocktail, get lei’d!

Oh My God! was the first Art Car created by artist and filmmaker Harrod Blank. At the age of 16, Blank became embarrassed by the blandness of his all-white Volkswagen and painted a rooster on the driver’s door. He never stopped decorating the car, which ultimately served as the springboard to his career in building Art Cars and documenting the Art Car movement.

Unusual Life is based here in Seattle, and we’re excited because Harrod Blank is bringing “Oh My God!” all the way from the Art Car World Museum in Douglas AZ to Seattle for the Art Car Blow Out. The film “Automorphosis” will play Thursday June 17th at the Northwest Film Forum in Seattle at 7 and 9 pm where “Oh My God!” and other art cars will be parked outside. Then he will attend the Seattle Art Car Blow Out from the 18th -20th at the Fremont Fair and the film will show again on the 21st at the Central Cinema at 7 pm. The filmmaker and other art car artists will be in attendance.

So if you live anywhere near Seattle, please stop by. Unusual Life will be in the Mighty Mighty Elvismobile, so stop by and say Hello!

Bizarre Architecture, originally uploaded by caliban23_.

This old milk store has been repurposed into a Vietnamese sandwich shop, but it still sports the original milk bottle and the name Braums Dairy on the sign.

This giant milk bottle is located in Spokane.

This old dairy building has been repurposed into a sign for an RV park in Corpus Christi, TX.

This giant milk bottle is at the Children’s Museum in Boston.

For more photos of large milk bottle buildings, see Giant Milk Bottle group on Flickr.

Museu Dalí de Figueres. Dalí Museum of Figueres. SERIE 01, originally uploaded by ¡arturii!.

A short train ride from Barcelona takes you to Figueres and the fantastical Dali Theatre and Museum. Even lining up to get in, you know you’re in for an intriguing visit.

From Wikipedia : “The Dalí Theatre and Museum (Teatre-Museu Dalí in Catalan language), is a museum of the artist Salvador Dalí in his home town of Figueres, in Catalonia.

The heart of the museum was the building that housed the town’s theatre when Dalí was a child, and where one of the first public exhibitions of young Dalí’s art was shown. The old theater was bombed in the Spanish Civil War and remained in a state of ruin for decades until Dalí and the mayor of Figueres decided to rebuild it as a museum dedicated to the town’s most famous son in 1960. The museum also occupies buildings and courtyards adjacent to the old theater building.”

Dali Museum

Opera House In Pink, originally uploaded by judepics.

Sydney Opera House, lit up pink for Breast Awareness Week.

Obscura Day is an international celebration of wondrous, curious, and esoteric places and you’re invited!

Atlas Obscura, the website compendium of strange and unusual places, is hosting a worldwide tour day on Saturday, March 20th.

Fans of Atlas Obscura are planning weird and unusual tours into places rarely seen by the public and you can view the website to see if your town is listed for this great day celebrating Unusual Life!

World’s Fair, originally uploaded by compact collection.

This photo is from the Seattle 1962 World’s Fair, located in an area called “Show Street”.

Show Street was the “adult entertainment” section of the fair, tucked into the northeastern part of the fairgrounds. Here, cultural aficionados could take in Gracie Hansen’s Paradise International, a Las Vegas-style floor show, or Sid and Marty Krofft’s “Les Poupees de Paris,” an adults-only puppet show. For the less cultured, there was “Girls of the Galaxy,” where young women posed naked for visitors with cameras. One had to be fast to catch this show — fair officials shut it down almost immediately.

Century 21 World’s Fair on History Link

My brother Den David sent me a link to the new 7-8-9 from n2a. No 2 Alike. He recalls correctly that my first car was a 1959 Chevy, saphire blue and white like the tail end of this hybrid with the Chevy styling of a ’57 front, ’58 sides, and ’59 tail comprising the body, all on a C6 Corvette 440 – 1000 hp powerhouse, touting a top speed of 180 mph. Yes please!!!

Well folks, Jana has done it again and in honor of Elvis’ 75th birthday may I share with you “The Elvis Aaron Presley Cake”!

See more of Jana’s Fun Cakes here.

OK, I want my own trilobite vehicle. Who doesn’t? This is The Electrobite Olenoides, A Trilobite Vehicle which Jon Sarriugarte and Kyrsten Mate of Form & Reform created from an electric wheelchair to get around at Burning Man 2009. Watch the Boing Boing Video below to check it out, and here’s a Flickr Set of the build process. Giddyup!

We’ve posted previously about the incredible performance art pieces by France’s Royal de Luxe street theatre company, and now they’ve outdone themselves once again with a stunning land and sea performance earlier this week. This is part of celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the falling of the Berlin wall. Check out the photos below, and the beautiful set of 35 photos just posted on The Big Picture. Please read the beautiful story associated with those pictures. Also check out the videos below and many more through the video links. Art and spectacle at it’s best. Pure magic!

Here’s the whole story on Buddha Shaped Pears.

Cakeland is a sculptural installation resembling a collection of perfect delicious cakes– wall mounted, hanging and standing– a walk-through cake environment complete with its own lighting. It is a sweet refuge, an endless kaleidoscopic landscape of cake, a respite from the grinding realities of the outside world.

The sculptures have all of the appeal of the best cake you have ever tasted, but can never be eaten. Whereas the nature of edible cake is fleeting, lasting only as long as the brief celebration it was made for, these cakes last as long as the artist or society have the wherewithal to preserve them, in order that they remain a place of pilgrimage, a seemingly idyllic oasis.

Cakeland was created by Oakland artist Scott Hove.