Eleanor P. Brenner

Eleanor P. Brenner passed away on April 2, 2023 at the age of 89. She was born in New York City on March 12, 1934 and spent most of her of her life in New York City before moving to Santa Fe in the late 1990’s. She was a graduate of New York University (NYU) where she earned Phi Beta Kappa honors. Eleanor was the personification of a New Yorker of her generation – stylish, sophisticated, elegant and, without a doubt, glamorous.

She met her beloved husband, Richard Arthur Brenner, while working at Bloomingdales. Dick and Eleanor’s marriage was one of two incredibly talented, strong individuals that couldn’t have been more different. She was instinctive, passionate and dreamed big; he was logical, practical and grounded. They had a great love affair that lasted for 56 years until Dick’s passing in 2013, and their love only grew and deepened with the passing decades.

Unlike many women of her generation who were defined by their husbands, Eleanor was a force of nature with great talents and abilities that she wanted to exploit to their fullest. Eleanor’s life and her career were defined by her creativity and her vision. Like those rare people who have photographic memory or perfect pitch, Eleanor had a unique ability to conceptualize things in her mind and unerringly bring them to life.

Eleanor was a nationally acclaimed, interior decorator with homes that she decorated featured in Better Homes & Gardens, Good Housekeeping and many other national magazines, before returning to school to get a degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), where she learned the mechanics of creating clothing. Shortly thereafter, Eleanor became an in-house designer for Henri Bendel’s creating one-of-a-kind, couture clothing.

In 1968, together with Dick, they started Brenner Couture, a very successful women’s dress business. They were equal partners, with Eleanor, the head designer, and Dick, the President handling the business operations. Their dresses were carried by the leading department stores of the era as well as by high-end women’s clothing boutiques. After a great 10+ year run, they closed the business in 1979, going out on top when Dick saw that the industry was changing.

Needing an outlet for her creativity, Eleanor turned to a new area, cooking. Having to be on a restrictive saltfree diet, Eleanor was frustrated that there were no recipes available for cooking without salt. An accomplished cook, Eleanor used her family as the guinea pigs to perfect her own salt-free recipes. Ultimately, Eleanor’s recipes became the basis for an acclaimed cookbook, Gourmet Cooking Without Salt that was published by Doubleday.

After a few years on the sidelines, Eleanor missed the action too much. Having no desire to work for anyone else, she started Eleanor P. Brenner, Inc., a women’s sportswear business focused on the working woman, Eleanor rose once again to the heights of the fashion world.

Eleanor was always engaged in philanthropic activities while living in New York. Among the many, two were particularly important to Eleanor. Eleanor played a key role raising funds for a new learning center at The House of the Good Shepherd, a shelter for battered and abused women and their children; and a decade later, raised money to build a new gym for the school her first grandson, Chris attended. Chris was a non-verbal, autistic child and seeing his plight and those of other children like Chris, inspired her to improve the lives of children in need, which became a lifetime passion of Eleanor’s.

In 1989, this fashionista and diehard New Yorker, gave it all up and moved to Santa Fe, seeking natural beauty, mountains, mesas, blue skies and sunsets right out of a Georgia O’Keefe painting.

Needing an outlet for her creativity talent, Eleanor designed every inch of a 10,000+ square foot home overlooking the Sangre de Cristo mountains of Santa Fe. From the hand-painted zodiac fresco on the dining room ceiling to the custom-designed doors and tables, the house reflects her vision and creativity. Eleanor took up painting in her 70’s and became an accomplished painter with her own unique style and flair. And her dinner parties became the talk of Santa Fe. They would range from small, intimate affairs for a dozen people or so – in Eleanor’s world this was a small dinner party – to incredible, themed events with well over a hundred of her and Dick’s friends in attendance. Eleanor was much more than a creative genius and a devoted wife and mother who raised two loving children. In addition, Eleanor was a very involved grandmother who treasured her relationships with her grandchildren. Seeing the impact that she was having on her grandchildren’s lives, Eleanor decided that she wanted to change children’s lives in Santa Fe and make sure that these children, who often came from challenging circumstances, could be all that they could possibly be.

In 2003, Eleanor and Dick created First Serve – New Mexico, a non-profit charitable corporation affiliated with the United States Tennis Federation (USTA). First Serve combines academic tutoring with life coaching and professional tennis instruction. First Serve’s core goal is to encourage students to fulfill their full potential through determination, diligence and hard work in combination with the sense of community and family that First Serve provides. First Serve has dramatically improved the lives of over a thousand young people in the Santa Fe area.

In the past year, Eleanor realized the two crowning achievements of her life. First, the USTA recognized First Serve-New Mexico as the most outstanding non-profit chapter in the United States out of over 250 chapters around the country. As Eleanor liked to joke, “We were an overnight success.”

Then, after nearly two decades of relentless and endless effort to raise the money to keep First Serve afloat and support the growing number of children in the program, Eleanor was introduced to Kimberly and Scott Sheffield. Kimberly and Scott were so inspired by Eleanor and the work that First Serve was doing to help the children of Santa Fe, that they decided to donate the full amount needed to give First Serve its first and only permanent home. Construction is set to begin in April and Eleanor will surely be smiling from heaven as they pour the concrete.

Eleanor was a deeply spiritual person, who had a profound faith in God. She was a proud Jew and an ardent supporter of the State of Israel. While in New York City, she and Dick were members of Central Synagogue. After moving to Santa Fe, they joined Beit Tikva Temple, where Eleanor was an active member of the congregation, participated in Torah study classes and developed a close and deep relationship with Rabbi Martin Levy, who she respected and adored.

Eleanor is survived by her son, Anthony Pir Brenner, and his wife, Susan Brenner, her daughter, Patricia Brenner Jackson and her husband, Mark Jackson, and her four grandchildren, Christopher and Jacob Jackson and Alexander and Maxwell Brenner.

Memorial services will be held at 11am on Tuesday, April 4th at St. Francis Auditorium, 107 West Palace Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to support First-Serve New Mexico at firstservenewmexico.org.

Eleanor will be deeply missed. Hers was a life welllived. The world is a far better place for Eleanor having been in it.