Peabody Hotel and the"Peabody Ducks"- Memphis

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*Astrella

Posted on 1/2/2014, 19:30

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Peabody Hotel and the"Peabody Ducks"- Memphis

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The Peabody Hotel is a luxury hotel in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee. The hotel is known for the "Peabody Ducks" that live on the hotel rooftop and make daily treks to the lobby.

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History

The original Peabody Hotel was built in 1869 at the corner of Main and Monroe streets by Robert Campbell Brinkley, who named it to honor the recently deceased George Peabody for his contributions to the South. The hotel was highly successful. Jefferson Davis, the former President of the Confederacy, lived there in 1870 when he worked as president of an insurance company. It closed in 1923.

The current Peabody Hotel building, on Union Avenue, was built in 1925 on the previous site of the Fransioli Hotel, which looked just like the original Peabody Hotel. Designed by Chicago architect Walter W. Ahlschlager, the Italian Renaissance building holds historical and cultural significance; it has been said that the Mississippi Delta "begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel (in Memphis) and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg".

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Before the mid-1960s, alcoholic beverages were sold in Tennessee only as sealed bottles in licensed liquor stores. A patron could bring a bottle acquired elsewhere into the hotel bar, The Creel, where the bartender would tag it and mix drinks from it at the patron's request.
The hotel went bankrupt in 1965 and was sold in a foreclosure auction to Sheraton Hotels. It became the Sheraton-Peabody Hotel.

The Sheraton-Peabody closed in 1973. Isadore Edwin Hanover purchased the hotel from the county in 1975 for $400,000 and sold it to his son-in-law, Jack A. Belz, for the same amount. Belz spent the next several years and $25 million renovating the landmark structure. The grand reopening in 1981 is widely considered in Memphis a major catalyst for the downtown area's ongoing revitalization.
The Peabody Hotel is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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Peabody Hotel Group

The Peabody Hotel Group (PHG) operated two additional properties under the Peabody name for many years. The Peabody Orlando, in Orlando, Florida opened in 1986 as the second Peabody Hotel.

It was sold on August 28, 2013 and will be renamed Hyatt Regency Orlando Convention Center on October 1, 2013. PHG operated a third hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas from 2002, when they assumed management of the formre Excelrios Hotel, until 2013, when the property became a Marriott.

They also previously operated properties under the Hilton name in Greenville, South Carolina and Little Rock, Arkansas.

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The Peabody Ducks

The Peabody is probably best known for a custom dating back to the 1930s. The General Manager of the time, Frank Schutt, had just returned from a weekend hunting trip in Arkansas. He and his friends found it amusing to leave three of their live English Call Duck decoys in the hotel fountain. The guests loved the idea, and since then, five Mallard ducks (one drake and four hens) have played in the fountain every day.

In 1940, a Bellman by the name of Edward Pembroke volunteered to care for the ducks. Pembroke was given the position of "Duckmaster" and served in that position until 1991. As a former circus animal trainer, he taught the ducks to march into the hotel lobby, which started the famous Peabody Duck March.

Every day at 11:00 a.m., the Peabody Ducks are escorted from their penthouse home, on the Plantation Roof, to the lobby via elevator. The ducks, accompanied by the King Cotton March by John Phillip Sousa, then proceed across a red carpet to the hotel fountain, made of a solid block of Italian travertine marble. The ducks are then ceremoniously led back to their penthouse at 5:00 p.m.

Over the years, The Peabody Ducks have gained celebrity status with television appearances (along with their Duckmaster) on The Tonight

Show Starring Johnny Carson, Sesame Street, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. They have also appeared in People magazine.
The position of "Duckmaster" at the Peabody Memphis is one of only three such positions in the world, the other two being the Duckmasters in the Orlando and Little Rock Peabody Hotels.

Celebrities have also assumed the role of Honorary Duckmaster from time to time, including Zane Lamprey, Paula Deen, Joan Collins, Molly Ringwald, Kevin Bacon, Peter Frampton, Emeril Lagasse, Patrick Swayze, Queen Noor of Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Fry, Rudolph van Veen and Gayle King.

The custom of keeping ducks in the lobby fountain may date back even further than the 1930s. A pre-1915 postcard highlights the ducks playing in the fountain, and one source claims the custom goes back to the hotel's opening in 1869.

However, the Peabody itself claims the duck tradition to have started in 1933, as on December 3, 2008 they unveiled a new "Duck Palace" located on the rooftop, for the 75th anniversary of the duck tradition. The 24 by 12 foot enclosure features granite flooring, ceiling fans, a scale replica of the hotel, a fountain decorated with a pair of bronze ducks, and a large viewing window for guests to see them in their new home. The Duck Palace cost approximately $200,000 to construct.

Design features

The Peabody Hotel's most recognizable features are large red neon "The Peabody" signs atop the Skyway Ballroom and the central elevator shaft.

The top floor, the Skyway and Plantation Roof, offers stunning views of the surrounding Memphis skyscrapers. The rooftop is often used as a space for bands and other musical acts, especially during the Thursday night "Rooftop Parties" in the summer months.

In the elevators, one must press "S" to access the top floor. If this floor were numbered, one would press "13" to reach it, but due to superstitions regarding the number thirteen, management decided to call the top floor "the Skyway."

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Radio and Television

The studios of radio station WREC and later its television spinoff WREC-TV (now WREG) were for many years located in the hotel basement.

During the Big Band era, the Skyway was a popular night-spot, and the ballroom was one of only a handful of sites in America from which the CBS radio network would broadcast live weekly programs. Regular headliners included Tommy Dorsey and the Andrews Sisters.

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