Copy link Copied Copy link Copied Subscribe to gift this article Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Already a subscriber? Login In Britain’s bucolic Cotswolds region, the arrival of summer is typically marked by a migration. Specifically, the return of a rarefied group to grand country houses in counties such as Oxfordshire or Gloucestershire, where preparations begin for a season of hosting guests at picnics, luncheons and events like the Chelsea Flower Show, the Royal Ascot horse races and “the tennis” – shorthand for a centre court box at Wimbledon.
Owners of those country estates – let’s call them the richest 1 per cent of the 1 per cent – of course do not handle such preparations themselves. These are relegated to butlers, whose job, like for others associated with the lifestyles of the ultrawealthy, has evolved. Graeme Currie at Weston Park, where he served as head butler for a decade.
NYT As personal assistants have been rebranded as executive assistants and childcare providers as executive nannies, buttling has become a career that involves not only polishing silver and folding napkins but also lifestyle management. The modern butler – also known as, wait for it, an executive butler – is still in most cases a man. But he is no longer a grandfatherly type in morning trousers that stays in the background, if not out of sight.
More likely, he is fresh-faced, wears a lounge suit with a Charvet tie and is by his employers�.