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In memory of Robert Kime, by his friends and
colleagues
Elfreda Pownall pays tribute to the late antique
dealer and decorator Robert Kime, followed by memories from his friends and
colleagues
By Elfreda
Pownall
4 November 2022
November 2022https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/im-memoriam-robert-kime
'Ican’t
explain,’ said Robert Kime when asked how he had put together his exquisite
London flat so quickly. It took just one week – but also a lifetime of looking
and collecting. Robert, interior decorator to His Majesty, King Charles III and
at least five English dukes, plus pop stars and potentates, died on August 17,
aged 76. He never made a room plan and was very clear he was not an interior
designer. Robert believed in putting beautiful, old and curious things
together, assembling the contents of a room to make it settled and comfortable:
‘I want my rooms to be lived in, not looked at.’
From
childhood, Robert was fascinated by history. He collected coins from the age of
five and, later, was happiest when rearranging the furniture in a shed in his
mother’s garden. By the age of 16, he had won a place at the University of
Oxford to read medieval history, but, too young to go up, spent 18 months
working on archaeological digs in Greece and Israel.
During his
first term at Oxford, his mother arrived to say he had to leave, as his
stepfather had walked out and there was no money left. His tutor would not hear
of it and gave Robert the rest of the year to sort things out. He always said
that selling the furniture his grandmother and his mother, an avid collector,
had amassed was how he learnt his trade. He researched each piece and he learnt
where to sell it to get the best price. ‘I had to – we needed the money,’ he
explained.
By the time
he returned to Oxford, he was an experienced dealer, taking the bus every
Thursday to the antique and junk shops in the Cotswolds. In typically
self-deprecating fashion, hea dmitted to making quite a few mistakes in those
early days, but he learned to be decisive. His friend Alastair Langlands, who
wrote the 2015 monograph Robert Kime (Frances Lincoln), was astonished when he
saw the habitually gentle, soft-voiced Robert in operation at antique fairs:
‘He was extraordinary, always first at the gate as it opened, deciding
instantly what he wanted, concluding deals at lightning speed.’
After
Oxford, a chance meeting at a student house party at Ashton Wold, the
Northamptonshire home of the scientist Miriam Rothschild, led to his first
shop. She had a mass of furniture she wanted to clear, but had fallen out with
the two great auction houses. Robert persuaded her to let him sell it for her,
and she set him up in a shop in Oundle.
The party
also brought him his wife, Helen Nicoll. They married when he was 23 and moved
to a gothic schoolhouse at Mildenhall, near Marlborough, using two wings of the
cruciform building as his shop. Wiltshire remained the centre of their family
and work lives, though in the course of a long and happy marriage, they also
had homes in Cumbria, the Luberon, Ireland and Faiyum, in Egypt. Helen, the
author of the acclaimed Meg and Mog series of children’s books, died in 2012.
Robert was
frequently asked by his customers to decorate their houses. At first, he would
give only Fridays over to decoration, but the clamour became insistent. In
time, he built up a prestigious worldwide clientele, about whom he remained
discreet. His mantra ‘Every room begins with the rug’ meant he travelled
constantly to Turkey and Egypt in search of antique rugs and textiles. Once, on
a Turkish bus, he bought the headscarf of the lady in front of him – a kandili
print with a pattern of pea pods. When, in 1983, he realised that the supply of
antique fabrics he had been using for curtains and upholstery was drying up, he
turned to fabric expert Gisella Milne-Watson. Together they began to create a
range of fabrics – including one inspired by the pea pods. A collection she had
discussed with Robert before he died is under way.
Swangrove,
a hunting lodge on the Duke of Beaufort’s estate was described by Robert as
‘the happiest and jolliest job I have ever done’. It is certainly among his
most beautiful. But Clarence House, the official residence of King Charles III
when Prince of Wales, was the most prestigious. It afforded Robert the bliss of
rooting through the royal attics at Windsor on behalf of a client who shared
many of his tastes, including a love of Near Eastern fabrics. As King Charles
wrote of Robert, ‘You often hear of people who are said to have “a good eye”,
but Robert Kime’s must surely be one of the best’.
HOUSES
At home in Wiltshire with Robert Kime's managing
director Orlando Atty
The shock of Robert Kime’s death in August
reverberated across the interiors industry, not least with his tight-knit team.
Among them is managing director Orlando Atty, who has inherited the
responsibility of guiding the multi-faceted business that Robert developed
By Liz
Elliot
28 December
2022
At home in
Wiltshire with Robert Kime's managing director Orlando Atty
Dean Hearne
When
Orlando Atty began working as an assistant at Robert Kime 13 years ago, few,
Orlando included, would have imagined that he would eventually be running what
is one of the most influential businesses in the world of antiques, fabrics and
interior decoration. He was appointed managing director in 2016 and, although
so many of us were shocked at Robert’s sudden death in August 2022, there was,
thankfully, a clear succession plan already in place. At the time of writing,
the small team at Robert Kime is in the middle of implementing this plan far
earlier than anticipated. Some of the photographs featured in these pages were
taken nearly a year ago and include a portrait of Robert and Orlando at the
company’s treasure-filled warehouse in Wiltshire.
In 2010,
Orlando had just completed a degree in business studies at the University of
the West of England in Bristol when he landed a job at Robert Kime’s antiques
warehouse in Marlborough, Wiltshire. It was meant to be a temporary role, but
he caught the bug and never left. ‘From the moment I entered the storeroom, I
was fascinated,’ he recalls.
He started
working in Robert’s shop in 2012. At that time located on Museum Street, WC1,
it was an almost Dickensian treasure trove of pieces and Orlando realised how
much he had to learn. Slowly, his footsteps fell in behind Robert’s. ‘I was
like a dry sponge soaking up everything I could,’ he says. ‘Above all, Robert
was a very gentle and generous teacher.’ The pair went on buying and site
trips, with Orlando learning to recognise pieces of integrity and beauty, to
absorb the genius loci of a room and to feel the balance of a space.
From 2013,
Orlando worked alongside Robert on some of his projects, as well overseeing his
own commissions – always under his mentor’s watchful eye. Following Robert’s
stroke, more responsibility had fallen onto Orlando’s shoulders. It was he who
suggested the company move to Pimlico from Museum Street. Though charming, the
latter space was on several floors, so difficult to manage, and it was a little
off the interiors beaten track. It was also Orlando’s task to find somewhere
for Robert to live nearby. Featured in House & Garden in October 2018, this
memorably beautiful flat was to be Robert’s last home.
Orlando and
his wife Charlie, who married in 2019, had been living in London. But when
Charlie was made redundant from her job in event management, the need for them
to live in the capital became less obvious. Expecting their first child, they
started to look for a house around Marlborough.
The
house-hunting process began. The property they initially wanted fell through,
but the estate agent mentioned that there was another option that might work,
though it was not yet on the market. It was only when Charlie went to see that
particular house – an 18th-century cottage down a quiet country lane leading to
the village church and within easy reach of the Downs – and liked it
immediately that the agent admitted it was his own home. The couple bought it.
Pressured
by the impending arrival of a new baby, due in just three months’ time, Orlando
managed to create new bathrooms as well as a new kitchen and dining space. ‘I
really like the kitchen,’ he says. ‘It’s a good space to be in, although I
don’t like the floor. But in the three weeks it took to build the kitchen,
there was no time to replace the floor.’ His timing proved to be excellent –
only days after its completion, baby Phoebe arrived. And two years after that,
in July 2022, her brother Rafferty was born.
The cottage
is the very essence of cosy and inviting, and is an ideal place in which to
spend Christmas. The sitting room is dominated by an enormous sofa, big enough
to allow the entire family to sit together by the fire. Even the presence of
armchairs and consoles leaves room for the tree, which was transported on the
roof of Orlando’s old Land Rover. Both he and Charlie are adept at creating
Christmas decorations from things collected on their daily walks with their
working cocker spaniel, Bailey, so they can drape garlands of holly, berries
and ivy over the fireplaces and pictures, and hang ebullient wreaths on the
doors.
Orlando
splits his time between Marlborough and London, going wherever he is needed.
The company’s Pimlico base is an enviable place to be. Robert Kime was a master
story teller – the best of his kind. But the company has always been very much
a team affair. Robert and Orlando worked very closely with Claire Jackson, who
is director of Robert Kime Design and head of projects, and Christopher Payne,
head of antiques. ‘Robert was good at bringing people together,’ Christopher
says. ‘The business is essentially people-based. Our clients become friends as
well as being customers.’ It is the kind of place where everyone mucks in to
create the finished product, which is one of the reasons why they do not take
on more than a few selected projects at a time.
Over the
last year, projects that had originated with Robert have been transferring
seamlessly to be overseen by Orlando. Ringing in his ears will no doubt be any
number of words of wisdom – usually very simple – imparted by Robert over the
years: ‘It is all about balance: a beautiful rug and a not-so-distinguished
table can add character to an interior. Don’t complicate a room for the sake of
it. It should never look clever, but always at ease with itself’.
Robert
Kime: robertkime.com
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