Graceland Farms was originally owned by Stephen C. Toof, founder of S.C. Toof & Co., the oldest commercial printing firm in Memphis, who was previously the pressroom foreman of the Memphis newspaper, the "Memphis Daily Appeal". The "grounds" (before the mansion home was built in 1939) was named after Toof's daughter, Grace. She inherited the farm/grounds from her father in 1894. After her death, the property was passed down to her niece Ruth Moore, a Memphis socialite, who together with her husband, Thomas Moore, built a Colonial Revival style mansion in 1939. The house was designed by architects Furbringer and Ehrman.