Elite Traveler November-December 2015

INSPIRE PROFILE

Selling England He is the aristocratic cabinetmaker who carved out a place at the helmof London’s furniture scene. He is also chairman of Christie’s, protégé of JohnMakepeace – and 18th in line to the British throne. Viscount Linley talks about the grandest of juggling acts

Words Laura Powell Photographs Mark Harrison

V iscount “call me David” Linley is sitting in the window of his furniture store on Pimlico Road in London – specifically on a sofa in his “lucky window” which, he says, gets maximum attention from passing traffic so the furniture displayed in it tends to sell well. The store is ensconced between some equally upmarket antique and interior shops for which the street is famous, among them Joanna Wood, Ossowski and Jane Churchill. Linley knows them all well. He was chummy with his former neighbors too, particularly antiques dealer Carlton Hobbs and Geoffrey Bennison who sold “big old wonderful carpets” that Linley used to sit on to take his morning tea and have a gossip. I originally planned to discuss exactly this. How Pimlico Road – where Linley's father, the world-renowned photographer Lord Snowdon, also had his studio – has changed over the decades. And to have a bit of a gossip too; ideally about the modernization of the street, which I hear through the grapevine Linley isn’t happy about. But a day before the interview I’m told Linley won’t talk about Pimlico Road, so instead I plan to focus on how he will mark his eponymous store’s 30th anniversary later this year. But even that transpires to be more of a tennis match than an interview. And Linley, it seems, has a remarkably keen return serve. How will he celebrate the anniversary of his business? “There are many ways you could celebrate it.” How would he describe his trademark furniture design style? “I don’t really like being labeled because I’m quite chameleon-like.” Having originally trained as a cabinetmaker before moving across to the business side, does he miss making things with his hands? “No. I mean… Hmmm… I do create things with my hands. I mend things at home. I cook!” How wonderful, what’s your signature dish? “I don’t have one.” Well what did you cook last night? “I’m not telling you that.” It’s exhausting. Perhaps it’s not surprising that Linley is tetchy given that previous interviewers have unkindly remarked upon his “David Gest hair” and nicknamed him the “Royal Del Boy” after he auctioned off a chunk of furniture from his late mother, Princess

Margaret’s Kensington Palace home. For the record his hair has thinned since his so-called Gest days and today he wears his dapper staple uniform of a cotton turtleneck, loafers and a charcoal pinstripe suit by “oh I don’t know, some tailor in Venice. I only went for a pair of socks but I came back with three suits – I’d had a rather long lunch you see. Ha! But that was 10 years ago and they’ve done me well. I prefer quality to quantity. Which is a nice segue back into the business…” He is a marketing man through and through; a walking brand who, at 54, still moves through his days with the speed and hunger of a newcomer. “I look exhausted because that’s the way I always lead my life,” he admits. “I usually go out to dinner every night, either with clients to a restaurant or to their home. My ambition is to never be at home.” Surely his wife, Lady Serena, can’t be happy about that? “Well, she and the children are on holiday in the country. So I tend to busy myself with work in the day and entertaining at night. Being at home equals not working.” This is probably why Linley has survived 30 years in the tough design industry. While other stores on the New King’s Road, where he originally opened his shop in 1985, barely made it beyond a few years, Linley survived and flourished, moving to his Pimlico Road store in 1993 with a floorplan three times the size. Three years later he acquired the upstairs apartments too, enabling him to extend upwards. The result is something that resembles a family home rather than a store, albeit a plush one. Inside is a curious mixture of ebony bookcases; alligator humidors; a tray that appears to be suspended in mid-air above a bar; a chair that looks like an Aston Martin driving seat; bottles of Balvenie whisky and Ruinart champagne; and a Scrabble board, partly made from sycamore, with the words “Linley”, “charm” and “luxury” coyly placed upon it. It’s essentially an inviting furniture store, but Linley doesn’t like it when I call it a store. Twice he refers to it as an “elite club” and, later, as a “tailor” that can create anything – hotel rooms for Claridge’s, fittings inside Bentleys, interiors of private jets and superyachts. He continues: “I see it