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 like 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 center court box at Wimbledon.
Owners of those country estates — let’s call them the one percent of the one percent — 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.
As personal assistants have been rebranded as executive assistants and child care 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’ side whether they are at home or not.
“They’re like a private maitre d’ now,” said Nicky Haslam, 84, the English interior designer and social fixture. “In the old days the butler was in the house all the time. Now, if the family is on their yacht, the butler goes with them.”
