“The principal factor for anyone with live-in staff is that you can trust them,”

TO BE NOTED: From the FT:

"Smooth operators

By Catherine Moye

Published: April 10 2009 17:21 | Last updated: April 10 2009 17:21

From the fearsome housekeeper Mrs Danvers in Rebecca to PG Wodehouse’s indomitable valet Jeeves, from the bell-answering maids in 1970s British television series Upstairs, Downstairs to the beleaguered heroine of 2007 film The Nanny Diaries, the relationship between homeowners and their domestic staff has long been a potent source of drama, or comedy.

But for the owners of large homes and estates, employing and retaining the best caretakers is a practical, serious and often expensive matter.

“The principal factor for anyone with live-in staff is that you can trust them,” says Colin Muller, who owns Hatherton Lodge, a Grade-II listed 18th-century mansion set on 18.2 acres in Cheshire, north-west England. He employs both a groundsman and a housekeeper and reckons they are both the functional engine and the emotional heart of the property. “We know that our home is in secure and responsible hands at all times and that’s a priceless asset for anyone.”

There’s no question that changing lifestyles and, more recently, the global recession have reduced demand for domestic staff. Gone are the days of country squires employing dozens of servants and of city bankers putting their nannies up in high-spec basement studios.

Yet the long-term trend for those qualified to work in the highest-end homes – from Tuscan vineyard estates to luxury Caribbean villas – is a positive one. With properties changing hands more frequently than ever before and globe-trotting owners flitting between multiple bases, these employees usually have the best understanding of how to keep households running smoothly. As a result, many are indispensable and therefore able to command both substantial wages and comfortable on-site accommodation.

AT YOUR SERVICE:

The making of a modern butler

The best butlers are trained in the UK, in keeping with the tradition of Jeeves. The London-based Guild of Professional English Butlers, run by an ex-head butler at The Lanesborough Hotel, offers a training academy, where coursework includes individual assignments, team projects, guest lectures and “field trips” to fine china specialists, wine merchants, great country houses, exclusive tailors, antiques dealers and luxury hotels.

According to the organisation’s website, the best candidates will be “flexible, hospitality-minded people ready to adapt to every employer’s needs [and] to supervise a variety of tasks and duties”. Also key is “hotel/guest contact experience, an understanding of the finer things of life and a desire to provide outstanding service”.

The end result should be “a butler waiting patiently in the wings to greet guests at the door and unobtrusively gliding around the dining room” who can also ensure that “homes, yachts and lifestyles are run with professionalism and the utmost discretion”.

Placements are through Hutchinsons, which has offices in London, New York and France’s Côte d’Azur.

www.guildofbutlers.com
www.hutchinsons-staff.com

“They are the ones who know where the stopcock is, how the security systems work and which parts of the garden are liable to flood,” says Tom Hudson of Middleton Advisors, a UK company that acts on behalf of buyers of country houses and estates. “Where estates are concerned, the type of buyer has changed dramatically and you have many more super-rich international buyers who don’t spend the length of time there that families would have done in the past. Not only will you need a full-time housekeeper and staff to run the house but also for insurance reasons.”

Alex Watzdorf of global buying agency The Private Office agrees. “If you are going to own several houses then you have to accept that you need staff both globally and regionally,” he says. “You can’t just bring your own staff, plonk them down and expect them to run the place. They will need to speak the language and interact with the locals. There are families who have grown up [on a property] and lived and worked there all their lives, sometimes for generations. They’re the ones who really love and nourish the place and prevent it from falling into rack and ruin, which I’ve seen when they fall out with the new owners.”

He recalls one client who bought his own employees to a vineyard estate instead of using locals; their lack of expertise meant that the year’s grape harvest was left to rot.

“I know of people who have sold properties because they had too many of the wrong staff and needed to get rid of them,” adds Philip Eddell of Knight Frank. “You are, in effect, running a small business and if you don’t manage the situation right, then there can be no way out but to sell the property.”

Even in cities where houses may be less complicated and maintenance less onerous, the super-wealthy will pay up for trusted household staff, says Jonathan Hewlett, head of London sales at Savills. “Today personal assistants, chefs and drivers will be skilled professionals who are expected to cope with demanding and complex situations. Like all other professionals, they expect to be well treated [so] a client will often ask us to source a London home for them and then a flat nearby for their staff.”

According to a January 2009 salary survey from Greycoat Placements, the staff recruitment agency, the best live-in house managers and chefs make £35,000-£45,000 per year before taxes in the UK capital and other big cities around the world, while butlers earn £30,000-£35,000. Live-in nannies and housekeepers cost £350-£400 per week, with the employer expected to pay their taxes.

But it is senior managers of large estates who are in highest demand and who reap the biggest rewards, even in a recession. Salaries are slightly lower or the same as those of city staff but, according to Eddell, their accommodation might include a swimming pool and a tennis court in addition to a small house. He remembers one client with a housekeeper and gardener couple living on his grounds who wanted to start a family. “The owner paid around £200,000 to extend their cottage,” he says. “The more enlightened employers will always pay a bit too much rather than a bit too little. If you are buying a country house estate worth £10m or £20m, then maintaining its asset value is vital.”

As for new properties at resort developments, “architects have to consider the overall needs of the household at the design stage”, says Stephanie Rough, managing director of Greycoat. At Zil Pasyon, in the Seychelles, for example, each villa incorporates staff rooms, despite the fact that the hotel group Per Aquum will also be servicing them. “We put in two self-contained flats with their own front door, around 400 sq ft, a separate kitchen, bedroom and small lounge area,” says architect Richard Hywel Evans.

And their placement actually dictated the layouts of the houses. “We originally had a standard front of house, back of house idea where the service would be unseen at the back. But then we realised that we had a bedroom going past a servant corridor and so we had to scrap that and redesign the whole house, turn the bedrooms around and re-orientate the kitchen and main dining room.”

He says that his wealthiest clients typically want their employees’ quarters customised in some way as well. “Some will ask if I think it’s possible to get four bunk-beds in the one tiny area,” he acknowledges, “but others say that the accommodation is too small and want to knock two flats together to house one employee. People are generally more humanitarian than they were in the past and staff who are close to the family tend to be more valued than ever before.”

That is certainly true of Muller’s housekeeper, June Kowalczuck. A retired nurse who came to Hatherton Lodge five years ago after answering a newspaper advertisement, she lives in a two-bedroom apartment over the estate’s coach house. “June not only knows all the parts of the stucco where the dust builds up but she knows how the central heating operates, as well as the lighting systems. If a fuse trips, she knows how to deal with it,” Muller says. “With a period house there is constant fiddling and it can be very temperamental without someone around who knows all its idiosyncrasies.”

She also helps take care of Muller’s children and six dogs but it’s the house that consumes most of her time. “Rather than a job, mine is definitely a way of life and, if you don’t make it a way of life, you’ll never succeed in the job,” Kowalczuck says. “The key thing is keeping up with the routine that I’ve set for myself. Over the years you do build up such a close connection to the house that you really do come to regard it as your own.”