Travel
JC Stays: The Peabody, Memphis, Tennessee
As Memphis celebrates its bicentenary, its grandest - and quirkiest - hotel is marking its own anniversary in style
February 12, 2019 11:03
As Memphis celebrates its bicentenary, its grandest - and quirkiest - hotel is marking its own anniversary in style
February 12, 2019 11:03It’s tea-time in the poshest perch in Memphis, but all eyes are on the duck rather than the tiered cake stands and porcelain plates. A live duck, that is, one of five splashing joyously in the elaborate marble fountain centrepiece of the impossibly grand lobby of the Peabody Hotel.
The Peabody, unlikely lynchpin of a city made famous by Elvis and the rise of blues, rock and soul, is famous for getting its ducks in a row. For nearly 80 years a few lucky birds have been lodged in a penthouse pool at this institution celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.
Ceremoniously marched down to the lobby at 11am for their day in the fountain and up again in the lift at 5pm prompt, a liveried duckmaster tends to the feathered inhabitants — and presumably trains them to walk their red carpet in format.
This is the year to see the waddling parade in person, as the Belz family, Jewish owners who saved the Peabody from the wrecking ball in the 1970s and reopened it in 1981, celebrate the hotel’s anniversary with knock-down room rates.
