11 minute read
The Red Door Diaries
Many decades apart, but forever linked by geography and circumstance, two incredible women stand on the threshold of the historic Elizabeth Arden House.
Dr. Dendy Engelman outside the treasured home.
The welcoming gates.
THE MAKING OF A TITAN
The year is 1938. The red door of the Elizabeth Arden House on Summerville’s Sumter Avenue is radiant in the afternoon sun as a young woman stands before it. Far more than merely the entrance to a masterpiece of Victorian architecture, it is representative of her life; the accomplishments of a bright, beautiful woman, blazing a trail across an industry and unknowingly setting a course for one who will eventually bring her amazing achievements full circle.
Elizabeth Arden’s story began in 1884, when a modest Scottish grocer and his wife welcomed their fifth child into the world on the last day of December, with no inkling that the baby girl they providentially named for a famous nursing pioneer would change the face of the world. They did not know that the New Year she greeted marked the start of a fantastic journey for tiny Florence Nightingale Graham, a journey that would prove her to be a pioneer in her own right.
Life was not easy for Graham, who worked odd jobs throughout her early youth to help support her family. Her inquisitive mind led her to train as a nurse, but it was not her destiny to follow in the footsteps of her namesake. Leaving her family for New York, she went to work as a bookkeeper for E.R. Squibb Pharmaceuticals. At night, Graham explored the company’s labs, curious about the skincare products created there. With a flawless complexion that belied her thirty years, she found her niche at a cosmetic shop, rising through the ranks to become a partner in its salon. When that partnership ended, she borrowed $6,000, changed her name to Elizabeth Arden, and in 1909, opened The Red Door Beauty Salon on New York’s Fifth Avenue.
Details reminiscent of its namesake abound.
The interior reflects a Victorian style.
Greenery creates a lush environment.
A regal terrier enjoying its palace.
Engelman realizing a childhood dream of visiting the home.
A parade of beauty influencers visit the home.
Capturing the perfect shot.
A bouquet reflects the beauty of the homestead.
Relaxing in the garden.
Engleman enjoying her time at the Elizabeth Arden House.
Perpetually dressed in pink and wearing Montezuma Red lips, Arden began to formulate and produce her own line of scientifically researched products, marketing them through makeovers with her coordinating facial makeup, eye color, and signature red lipstick. She targeted middleage women, advising them on ways to care for their skin using her anti-aging products, always reminding them, “To be beautiful and natural is the birthright of every woman.”
She traveled to France in 1912, learned new beauty and massage techniques from Paris salons, and collaborated with a French chemist to produce the first “fluffy” skin cream. She grew her burgeoning business under the Elizabeth Arden name and moved into the European market when she opened her first French salon in 1922. With over a hundred Elizabeth Arden salons and international presence, she eventually partnered with famous designers for a fashion division. At its peak, the Elizabeth Arden brand was ranked world-wide with the likes of Coca-Cola.
In 1938, she purchased an elegant, 15-room winter residence in Summerville, South Carolina, constructed in 1891 by Samuel Lord, builder of the town’s famous Pine Forest Inn. Located on Summerville’s tony Sumter Avenue, the Victorian home forever dubbed the Elizabeth Arden House boasted an indoor swimming pool, 12-foot ceilings, and details that reflected the ‘Golden Age’ of Summerville’s great inns.
Always maintaining her reputation for high standards and exclusivity, Elizabeth Arden appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Even at age seventy, her flawless skin and red lips made her easily mistaken for forty, and was a testament to the products she created. Her company went on to manufacture over 300 cosmetic products, selling for a premium price and beautifying the faces of Hollywood royals including Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich, and actual royals, Queens Mary and Elizabeth. Known as one of the wealthiest and most successful women in the world, Elizabeth Arden died at the age of 81 and is buried in the famed Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in New York under the name Elizabeth N. Graham.
NOT YOUR MOTHER’S MAKEUP
Elizabeth Arden’s story is one that needs no embellishment to make it as relevant today as it was for the pin-up girls of the past. The legacy of beauty and refinement lives on, but while the brand giant was once on the lips of the world with only a handful of competitors, today thousands of small, new, independent brands are readily available to savvy young people through social media. But in the midst of a long-overdue movement to empower women, many are unaware of Elizabeth Arden’s role as one of the first females to create and lead a beauty empire, long before they had the right to vote or the option of a college education.
Jenna Rotner Drucker of the award-winning marketing and public relations agency, Lippe Taylor, is ready to share Arden’s legacy with a new breed of beauty consumers. Specializing in marketing to women, the account manager recognizes the shift in strategy necessary to reach and inform young women who might only know the name from their mother’s or grandmother’s makeup bags.
“We’ve reached a pivotal moment in beauty,” says Rotner Drucker of the event that brings a dozen beauty bloggers and influencers to the iconic red door of the Elizabeth Arden House in Summerville, now home to the Honorable Diane Goodstein and Mr. Arnold Goodstein, who graciously host the influential group. Rotner Drucker hopes that this weekend-long event offering a peek into the very personal life of the cosmetic company giant will help them to connect with Arden’s story.
A brass pineapple knocker is a nod to the South.
The guesthouse is charming.
“Beauty influencers, makeup artists, and bloggers access the world through the internet and vice versa,” says Drucker. “The Elizabeth Arden line is not as familiar to this new audience, and we recognize the importance of bringing to light the legacy of empowerment behind the heritage brand, and the ongoing, credible science behind the name for today’s powerful new voices.”
That’s what makes Dr. Dendy Engelman’s involvement as a Consulting Dermatologist to the brand so special. Uniquely qualified to tell the entrepreneur’s story at this event, she embodies both the beauty and science components of the brand. She also has a personal connection that draws it close to her heart.
FULL CIRCLE
Engelman’s own story began under the blue skies of Summerville, SC, where three little girls skipped down the sidewalk of Sumter Avenue. Against a backdrop of purple wisteria and brilliant pink azaleas, Dendy Engelman, along with her friends Mary and Lainey, spent the summer day as they had many others, videoing themselves singing Shout, dancing The Twist, and pretending to spin the wheel of fortune as famous South Carolinians, James Brown, Chubby Checkers, and Vanna White. Looking back on those days, Engelman’s recurring choice to play Elizabeth Arden, the “beauty lady” whose beautiful home she could almost see from her bedroom window, was a foretelling of her future.
As a descendant of the town’s original founders and daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Otis Engelman, the white-gloved traditions of manners and grace that pass organically from Southern mothers to their daughters prepared her for whatever path she chose. Just as naturally, the daughter of both a physician, registered nurse and counselor, young Dendy grew increasingly fascinated by the field of medicine. Excelling at both academics and sports, by high school she could spike a volleyball, out-run, and out-think most of her schoolmates. “But I was also a girly girl,” admits the perfectly powdered physician. “I loved beauty and make-up and all the trimmings.”
Those who dismissed the strikingly beautiful Engelman as simply a pretty face vastly underestimated the triple threat she posed. At Wofford College, the beauty not only played varsity volleyball, but she was also Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude with honors in French and psychology.
Earning acceptance to the Medical University of South Carolina, Engelman completed her internship in internal medicine at Manhattan’s Mount Sinai Medical Center. Though she enjoyed and excelled in general medicine, she returned to MUSC for a dermatology residency. It was not a universally popular choice for those who advised her on a career path, including her own father. But she explained of her decision to enter the field, “Almost more than any other specialty, dermatology crosses the boundaries of physical and emotional health. It incorporates the surgical and procedural aspects of medicine, which I loved, but I also found it transformative for the patient.”
Her plans to remain in the Charleston area were disrupted when she followed the senior Dr. Engelman’s advice. “No education is ever wasted,” he told her. “In one year you can rise to the top of your specialty.” Though exhausted by the years already invested in her career, she returned to New York for a one-year fellowship in Mohs surgery, dermatologic surgery, and cosmetic dermatology. It was a year that would change her address, and shape her destiny.
More than ten years later, as an associate at Manhattan Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery, Dr. Engelman recalls following her father’s advice as the best decision she ever made. Along with the fulfillment of a successful career, and the joys of life alongside husband Devin and their two children, Engelman has most recently been named Director of Dermatologic Surgery at New York Medical College where she oversees the training of future Mohs surgeons and dermatologists.
In her role as Consulting Dermatologist for Elizabeth Arden, Engelman is not only a walking endorsement of the aesthetics of the brand for beauty editors, influencers, and bloggers; she is their link to the real science behind the products. “There is an incredibly empowering story behind Arden’s company,” Engelman says of Florence Nightingale Graham’s rise to the top of her industry, “and today, more than ever, women need to hear it.”
Fate has a strange way of writing implausible storylines. When asked to help share the founder’s bold philosophy with a new generation, she could hardly believe it. Her first call was to her mother, who took the call just down the sidewalk from the residence once occupied by the cosmetic pioneer.
Now, in 2018, as it was eighty years before, the red door of the Elizabeth Arden House on Summerville’s Sumter Avenue is as radiant in the afternoon sun as the young woman standing before it. Beautiful, accomplished, and far more than simply a pretty face, Dr. Dendy Engelman pauses on the threshold to pay homage. Eight decades later, the life and accomplishments of a bright, beautiful, trailblazing woman come full circle as the young physician returns to her home and place of inspiration.
As a dozen beauty influencers arrive like a flock of colorful birds at the gate, Summerville’s native daughter welcomes the writers to the home of the elegant entrepreneur who once lived here. On the sidewalk, the shadow of a little girl dances, pretending to be “the beauty lady.” No one could have imagined that the little girl would one day step up to represent Elizabeth Arden’s life’s work, and assure its momentum for years to come.
Undoubtedly, somewhere the woman who changed the face of the world with determination and Montezuma Red lips smiles proudly as the accomplished young doctor turns, and walks confidently through the red door, and into the future.
The entrance is inviting and enticing.
Walkways on the grounds encourage exploration.
Views of neat and tidy beauty can be found all over.
A refreshing outdoor space.
by Susan Frampton
photos by Dottie & Will Rizzo
