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Ethan Allen furniture is as American as apple pie. Even the most uninitiated among us relative to interior décor has heard of this iconic company. Founded in 1932, it has long been associated with high-quality, classic, early-American style furniture.
Today, though, there is no single Ethan Allen look, and its many collections (“Sonoma,” “Brooklyn,” and “Capitol Hill” for example) offer classic design with a modern perspective. Denise Hummingbird St. Peter-Scarbrough and husband Tom Scarbrough own a condominium in the Claridge House at the corner of North Main and Adams,
and their furniture is all by Ethan Allen. The cool and elegant interior is courtesy of Brenda Duck, the company’s designer in the Memphis area.
I was fortunate to meet Duck at a party hosted by one of my colleagues here at Memphis magazine. I asked her about a favorite recent design job, and she immediately said she had been “mesmerized” by this great couple and had loved working with them. It sounded like a great story, and let’s face it, wouldn’t anyone be intrigued with a homeowner named Denise Hummingbird St. Peter-Scarbrough? I later was not one bit surprised to find out that her heritage is part Jewish, Catholic, and the North American Ojibwe tribe in Canada!
An added piece of this story is that their 16th-floor condominium is in the former Claridge Hotel, built in 1924, and now on the National Register of Historic Places. Their home incorporates part of what was once the renowned rooftop Balinese Room, where the likes of Tommy Dorsey and Elvis performed.
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Framed vintage brochure for Hotel Claridge makes for entertaining decor as it describes “Charming Hospitality in downtown Memphis” with single rooms starting at $2.50. Air-conditioned rooms were 50 cents per person extra.
Tom Scarbrough, who is originally from Knoxville, is regional sales director of First Data Corporation, and his wife is a former sales and marketing executive in the field of computer software and now consults in the insurance business. They are transplants to our city, which by the way they have grown to love dearly. Hummingbird tells me that between them they have lived and worked in places like Spokane, Dallas, Chicago, Denver, and Seattle, among other cities. Although they had known each other previously, the couple “bonded over barbecue” and were married in Charleston in 2010. You could say this pair is all over the map.
After living away for several years, they finally moved into the Claridge House condominium last May. They love the beautiful views from their light-filled aerie (dare I say fit for a hummingbird) with its 16-foot ceilings. The skyline view from their windows of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the renovated Sears Crosstown building
reminds them of Chicago. They walk everywhere downtown including to the Orpheum, AutoZone Park, Lansky Brothers at the Peabody and their favorite restaurant, Flight.
This couple eats healthily and neither drinks alcohol, and as they laughingly like to say, “Two liquor stores closed when we stopped!” What’s more, they tell me they go to bed at 8:30 p.m. and get up at 3:30 a.m. to work out and await delivery of their Wall Street Journal. Turns out they have been married for seven years and have never seen midnight together. But don’t think they are all work and Spartan discipline as they both love to play golf at Galloway.
Clients and designer have formed a mutual admiration society, and the couple told me “they cannot say enough about Brenda Duck and her expertise and wonderful personality.” They point to the fact that she is a good listener whom they fortunately first met in 2016 when they walked into the Ethan Allen Store on North Germantown Parkway in Cordova. It so happens that Tom had worked as a delivery boy for the company in his youth and was acquainted with the high quality of its furniture. Not only that but complimentary design service is an Ethan Allen tradition; not surprisingly, the Scarbroughs found inspiration and help from an experienced design professional, who in this case was Brenda Duck.
The designer comes by her talents honestly as her mother was a designer at Goldsmith’s, and her father was responsible for the magnificent windows at the late, great department store Julius Lewis, located at 1460 Union Avenue. When this store opened its interior was described as “a scene of fairyland beauty.” Not surprisingly Duck deeply appreciates Ethan Allen furniture, and she told me she is often on the lookout at estate sales for vintage pieces.
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Mirrored chests, a luxe upholstered sleigh bed, geometric-styled lamps, and a purple accent wall make this a stylish bedroom.
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The interesting artworks lining this hallway include framed porcelain feathers and an image of famed Canadian singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie.
Her clients wanted a fresh slate, with everything new, light, and bright with “nothing to water or feed.” Every piece was pulled from different Ethan Allen collections with the exception of the art on the walls (the wow factor!). The three Liudmila Kondakova paintings are from the Martin Lawrence gallery in Dallas. Duck drew up a floor plan and the couple approved it.
The soothing neutral paint colors used — Patience and Dried Lavender — are by Sherwin-Williams. To allow visitors to get close to the windows to take in the views, the furniture is not placed against the walls. The carpeting is courtesy of Kiser’s Floor Fashions; Hamilton’s Fireplace Shop converted the fireplace from wood-burning to electric. Snyder’s Plumbing did the work on the renovations in two bathrooms. All of the lighting is new, as are the kitchen appliances. The result is a gorgeous home that is timeless and tailored.
Hummingbird and Tom love their place not only for the view and quality of life it offers but for its convenience to the airport since they both travel so much for business. The Delta Sky Club is home away from home for them, and they confessed they had only slept in their bed 106 days out of 365 in the past year. They always stay in luxury hotels, and consequently Duck says she was under pressure to make their place “resemble the Ritz.”
Surely everyone will agree with interior designer Brenda Duck (and me, for that matter) that Denise Hummingbird St. Peter-Scarbrough and her husband, Tom Scarbrough, are intriguing people with a unique home and a fascinating lifestyle.
