Miniature Graceland
(Roanoke Notes, November 6, 2025)

There’s a little patch of Roanoke that hums softly with the ghost of Elvis, not through jukebox speakers or velvet paintings, but through plywood, shingles, and love. Tiny Graceland still stands, or maybe leans, out there on the edge of Don Epperly’s old yard, the grass curling up around its miniature white columns and blue trimmed chapel.

Don built it back in the eighties, one small imitation at a time, Graceland’s gates in miniature, the birthplace in Tupelo recreated with devotion and a steady hand, a landscape of memories small enough for squirrels to tour. They say he started after visiting the real Graceland, came home and decided that the King deserved a Virginia echo. It grew into a neighborhood landmark, a shrine to both Elvis and the sheer stubborn joy of making something just because it should exist.

Now it sits quiet, weather-silvered. The plastic flowers have gone pale, and the paint has given itself back to the seasons. The Salem Garden Club tends it here and there, keeping the spirit alive even as vines try to crown the place with green. Every now and then someone pulls over, camera in hand, smiles, and whispers a “thank you very much” into the breeze.

Tiny Graceland isn’t a tourist trap or a spectacle, it’s a memory of belief, scaled down but not diminished. Don’s gone now, but his heart’s still parked there, somewhere between the tiny chapel and the tinny strains of “Love Me Tender” that once drifted from a boombox on the porch.

If you pass by, slow down. Look close. The King’s still there, just smaller, kinder, and maybe even closer to heaven.


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