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A group of butlers sits around a large table in Huize Damiaan, a former monastery, preparing for a career in the world of wealth and privilege. This is no easy task. As a famous American hotelier once said: ‘Perfect service is like the Andromeda galaxy – virtually out of reach.’
Aspiring butlers must undergo eight weeks of training before they are released into the world of royal palaces, tycoons and superyachts. In front of the class this morning stands Melchior van der Meulen, 69, impeccably dressed in a white shirt – a man with decades of butling experience under his belt. ‘Modern butlers have to be all-rounders’, he says. ‘Equal parts manager, logistics expert, life coach and servant.’
Practical skills are on the agenda today: polishing shoes and polishing silver.
Aspiring butlers must undergo eight weeks of training before they are released into the world of royal palaces, tycoons and superyachts. In front of the class this morning stands Melchior van der Meulen, 69, impeccably dressed in a white shirt – a man with decades of butling experience under his belt. ‘Modern butlers have to be all-rounders’, he says. ‘Equal parts manager, logistics expert, life coach and servant.’
Practical skills are on the agenda today: polishing shoes and polishing silver.
Van der Meulen holds up a black brogue shoe. ‘Never allow the polish to touch the sole. A cardinal sin! It could ruin an expensive carpet.’ On the subject of silver, the veteran butler cautions: ‘Always keep in mind that the teapots, fish servers and oyster knives you handle are often worth more than your annual salary.’
Outside, the Netherlands celebrate summer with flowers and leafy avenues. A gardener trims the hedges and waters the hand-picked rhododendrons. Inside, the butlers are preparing for the evening meal. They lay place settings using laser scanners and butler sticks, their hands enclosed in white gloves. Everything takes place under pressure, of course. Employers generally don’t like to wait.
Today, a 10-course meal is being simulated, complete with Asian amuse-bouche and shiny dome plate covers. The instructors take their job seriously. The International Butler Academy in Simpelveld, in the Netherland’s Limburg province, is one of the world’s best butler schools.
Outside, the Netherlands celebrate summer with flowers and leafy avenues. A gardener trims the hedges and waters the hand-picked rhododendrons. Inside, the butlers are preparing for the evening meal. They lay place settings using laser scanners and butler sticks, their hands enclosed in white gloves. Everything takes place under pressure, of course. Employers generally don’t like to wait.
Today, a 10-course meal is being simulated, complete with Asian amuse-bouche and shiny dome plate covers. The instructors take their job seriously. The International Butler Academy in Simpelveld, in the Netherland’s Limburg province, is one of the world’s best butler schools.
Setting the table is a professional affair, complete with laser scanners, butler sticks and utmost concentration.
Demand for household staff is on the rise, with the fastest growth in the US, followed by the Middle East, Asia and Europe. Good butlers are as sought-after as Russian caviar. Employers want sophisticated individuals who are crackerjack organisers – as skilled at serving a bottle of 1982 Dom Pérignon as they are at conjuring up premium tickets to the next Taylor Swift concert and reciting Shakespeare.
Expert butlers anticipate their employer’s wishes before they are even expressed. When laying the table, they place the glasses with millimetre precision, perfectly aligned with the chandelier. Butlers are knowledgeable about opera and theatre, can tell a true Picasso from a miserable imitation, and are quite capable of programming a home surveillance system.
Butlers don’t panic when parking a two-million-dollar Bugatti beside a five-million-dollar Bentley, nor do they bat an eye when asked to pitch a luxury tent in the jungle, complete with an outdoor shower and a Hemingway bar. What was it van der Meulen said? ‘It’s the small things that make life beautiful.’
Expert butlers anticipate their employer’s wishes before they are even expressed. When laying the table, they place the glasses with millimetre precision, perfectly aligned with the chandelier. Butlers are knowledgeable about opera and theatre, can tell a true Picasso from a miserable imitation, and are quite capable of programming a home surveillance system.
Butlers don’t panic when parking a two-million-dollar Bugatti beside a five-million-dollar Bentley, nor do they bat an eye when asked to pitch a luxury tent in the jungle, complete with an outdoor shower and a Hemingway bar. What was it van der Meulen said? ‘It’s the small things that make life beautiful.’
Human skills are important too. Butlers can play the clavichord of courteousness with their eyes closed. They can also make beds, most meticulously and, in a pinch, one-handed while balancing a tea tray with the other.
And then there are the twin virtues loyalty and discretion – both of which are as firmly anchored in a butler’s capable hands as the Brooklyn Bridge is in the East River. This is what the job requires. Mastering the art of service, butling to perfection.
The old monastery, now home to the hospitality training institute with 137 rooms, is hung with giant, three-by-four-metre oil paintings depicting bygone battles. In the ballroom, Napoleonic figurines stand beside silver bowls proffering pralines made of chiselled chocolate. Professional bartenders teach the butlers how to mix classic cocktails; tailors show them how to put on a dressing gown. Future employers are looking for staff who are solidly trained. When they hire a butler, they’re not just paying for a white-gloved porter, but a cosmopolitan factotum on speed dial who can cater to their every wish at jet speed 24/7. ‘For a butler, there are no problems, only solutions’, van der Meulen says.
And then there are the twin virtues loyalty and discretion – both of which are as firmly anchored in a butler’s capable hands as the Brooklyn Bridge is in the East River. This is what the job requires. Mastering the art of service, butling to perfection.
The old monastery, now home to the hospitality training institute with 137 rooms, is hung with giant, three-by-four-metre oil paintings depicting bygone battles. In the ballroom, Napoleonic figurines stand beside silver bowls proffering pralines made of chiselled chocolate. Professional bartenders teach the butlers how to mix classic cocktails; tailors show them how to put on a dressing gown. Future employers are looking for staff who are solidly trained. When they hire a butler, they’re not just paying for a white-gloved porter, but a cosmopolitan factotum on speed dial who can cater to their every wish at jet speed 24/7. ‘For a butler, there are no problems, only solutions’, van der Meulen says.
‘A butler is like a Swiss army knife’, says Karen Xiao, head butler in Simpelveld. ‘Extremely versatile and able to perform dozens of different tasks.’ Packing a suitcase is one of them. It’s a subject in itself.
A case should be packed much like a sandwich. Shirts and suits shouldn’t be folded individually but rather layered. Always with a sheet of tissue paper in between. The cocoon method, it’s called. And it’s not unknown for an employer to travel with 50 suitcases or more.
It goes without saying that a butler should know what the gentleman prefers to wear in which corner of the world. A final tip from Karen Xiao: ‘Always pack a bar of your employer’s favourite soap. The scent will add to their well-being when they’re away from home.’
A competent butler must keep track of the minutiae of everyday life, remain level-headed at all times and at least three steps ahead.
A case should be packed much like a sandwich. Shirts and suits shouldn’t be folded individually but rather layered. Always with a sheet of tissue paper in between. The cocoon method, it’s called. And it’s not unknown for an employer to travel with 50 suitcases or more.
It goes without saying that a butler should know what the gentleman prefers to wear in which corner of the world. A final tip from Karen Xiao: ‘Always pack a bar of your employer’s favourite soap. The scent will add to their well-being when they’re away from home.’
A competent butler must keep track of the minutiae of everyday life, remain level-headed at all times and at least three steps ahead.
Aspiring butlers undergo eight weeks of training before they are released into the world of royal palaces and superyachts.
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Travel is a category of its own, says Niels Deijkers, 36, general manager of The International Butler Academy. This is because it requires butlers to think in different terms entirely, he explains.
A seven-day luxury safari in South Africa, then a four-day business trip to Houston, followed by a week on a private island in the Caribbean – organising trips like these is standard procedure for a butler. Along with coordinating well-timed shopping stops for the kids.
Seasoned butlers tell stories about hotels in the Swiss Alps being hastily remodelled so that a royal family feels at home; about cakes being brought in by private plane from the south of France, and favourite shoes jetted off to be repaired by a favourite shoemaker in Rome.
A seven-day luxury safari in South Africa, then a four-day business trip to Houston, followed by a week on a private island in the Caribbean – organising trips like these is standard procedure for a butler. Along with coordinating well-timed shopping stops for the kids.
Seasoned butlers tell stories about hotels in the Swiss Alps being hastily remodelled so that a royal family feels at home; about cakes being brought in by private plane from the south of France, and favourite shoes jetted off to be repaired by a favourite shoemaker in Rome.
And when a group of elegant individuals on their yacht in southern France decide one morning that they’d like to have dinner on the top of a particular mountain, the clock starts ticking. The chief butler has eight hours: to determine if the outcrop is accessible and to find a caterer who will serve the meal at the desired time in the accustomed manner. The next step then is to arrange for the pier to be blocked off, to book limousines, organise live music and if necessary, hire a helicopter.
Dinner that evening is served on the mountain as requested. A party of six at a table spread with a white tablecloth, enjoying fresh lobster and chilled wine. Deijkers says: ‘The whole thing could easily cost €450,000, but that won’t be the problem.’
Karen Xiao and Niels Deijkers point out that not all employers have such singular requests. These days, businesspeople, company owners and stockbrokers often want to hire a butler too. ‘The butler’s function is closer to that of a personal assistant, someone to manage their life and their household’, says Xiao. Time is money, after all.
Dinner that evening is served on the mountain as requested. A party of six at a table spread with a white tablecloth, enjoying fresh lobster and chilled wine. Deijkers says: ‘The whole thing could easily cost €450,000, but that won’t be the problem.’
Karen Xiao and Niels Deijkers point out that not all employers have such singular requests. These days, businesspeople, company owners and stockbrokers often want to hire a butler too. ‘The butler’s function is closer to that of a personal assistant, someone to manage their life and their household’, says Xiao. Time is money, after all.
A butler is like a Swiss army knife: extremely versatile and always at hand.
A private villa in the small town of Lochem, roughly 200 kilometres further north, houses the International Butler Training Institute. It’s run by the Dutchman Cornelius Greveling, who worked as a butler himself for over 30 years. Asked how many countries he has visited in the course of his career, he says: ‘The question is rather, which countries have I not yet seen.’
Greveling is well versed in every trick of the trade and has virtually seen it all. He knows of royal families who have 2,000 butlers on the payroll. Of magnates who have flown in ten candidates at once, first-class, halfway around the world, for a ten-minute job interview.
He recently returned from a trip to Asia and the Middle East. For him, placing a butler is a personal and individualised process. ‘You have to have an international and very reliable address book’, he says. ‘If you need to arrange a green card or a jet at short notice, it’s just a phone call away.’
Butlers who move in this kind of orbit have to be true specialists: advocates of knowledge, drivers of the doable. They have to be able to read the stars – and, if required, fetch them from the sky.
Greveling is well versed in every trick of the trade and has virtually seen it all. He knows of royal families who have 2,000 butlers on the payroll. Of magnates who have flown in ten candidates at once, first-class, halfway around the world, for a ten-minute job interview.
He recently returned from a trip to Asia and the Middle East. For him, placing a butler is a personal and individualised process. ‘You have to have an international and very reliable address book’, he says. ‘If you need to arrange a green card or a jet at short notice, it’s just a phone call away.’
Butlers who move in this kind of orbit have to be true specialists: advocates of knowledge, drivers of the doable. They have to be able to read the stars – and, if required, fetch them from the sky.
For Greveling, the road there wasn’t easy. He learned his trade at an illustrious butler school in London. ‘The training reflected the standards of the British royal family’, he recalls. ‘We even had to iron the newspaper.’
After finishing his training, Greveling worked in Saudi Arabia for many years. His principal was a member of the royal family, and as chief butler, he had 250 butlers under him for a time.
Every evening, dinner was served to 60 guests. Malls had to be closed for private shopping tours, and when His Excellency wanted one of his 120-odd cars brought round to the front door, his butler knew it had to match the colour of his socks.
Cornelius Greveling loves his job. He stands in the garden by the pond with the quacking ducks, the Dutch sunlight falling on his neatly combed hair. ‘Believe me’, he says, smiling. ‘There isn’t very much an experienced butler hasn’t seen.’
Loosening his cravat, he proceeds to light a cigarette.
After finishing his training, Greveling worked in Saudi Arabia for many years. His principal was a member of the royal family, and as chief butler, he had 250 butlers under him for a time.
Every evening, dinner was served to 60 guests. Malls had to be closed for private shopping tours, and when His Excellency wanted one of his 120-odd cars brought round to the front door, his butler knew it had to match the colour of his socks.
Cornelius Greveling loves his job. He stands in the garden by the pond with the quacking ducks, the Dutch sunlight falling on his neatly combed hair. ‘Believe me’, he says, smiling. ‘There isn’t very much an experienced butler hasn’t seen.’
Loosening his cravat, he proceeds to light a cigarette.
