one to one with
Simon Barry
MICHAEL DINEEN meets Simon Barry, head of new developments at Harrods Estates
A
rchitects are improving. So says Simon Barry, an Oxford fine arts graduate who has been conducting a critical study of their work in
residential housing for the very rich in central London.
“During the past eight years I’ve had their plans across my desk every day of the week working as a salesman and consultant in estate agency; often enough anyway to be able to suggest improvements.”
Barry has recently resigned a partnership with Knight Frank to join Harrods Estates as director with responsibility for new developments and says that a lot of London architectural practices have been too focused on the commercial world. “They didn’t understand residential at all. But in the past five or six years they have been on a very steep learning curve. They have discovered what the residential client actually wants and it’s not necessarily something that looks impressive from the outside, like many of their office blocks. They have learned about comfortable interior details.”
These architectural converts from prestigious commercial developments to humbler residential needs have the currently booming international appeal of central London to thank for their “improvement”.
The London residential market, particularly those areas defined by Mayfair, South Kensington, Chelsea and Knightsbridge, is expanding to meet impatient demands of the newly rich investors from Russia, Arabia, India, Malaysia and the Americas, believes Barry. And the new creations of switched-on architects are proving popular – now they have got used to the idea that it is the clients’ comfort that matters, rather than the approval of their peers and the art critics.
The mention of art brings me to Simon Barry’s unexpected beginnings in the hard-necked world of estate agency. His fine art degree from Oxford was followed by a spell at the Ruskin School of Drawing. This he found very exciting, but it still led only to a fairly desultory living derived from teaching art, the most interesting aspect of which involved his appointment as Artist in Residence at the Pringles knitware factory in Hawick. Barry spent eight post-graduate years in Scotland before returning to his native patch, St Johns Wood, in the hope of continuing his
24| May 2013 showhouse
Today he reflects ruefully that these flats have trebled in value. And Barry has moved up market too. In the past 15 years he has worked for Hamptons and Savills, gradually improving his position until he found himself a salaried partner with Knight Frank. It was at this stage that Barry began to wonder
if it would be wise to spend the next few years following the example of his friends, moving easily between the posh London based agencies while moving ever upward in the pecking order. Then out of the blue came an approach from
an executive search outfit representing a client with rapid expansion on their mind. Harrods Estates needed someone to lead the
way in trebling their coverage of top London locations. Barry fitted their requirements perfectly. As head of new developments based in a new office in Chelsea his plans include opening two more new Harrods offices in the next couple of years. I asked why he chose to move after an eight-
year spell with KF – and a partnership to boot. “I wanted autonomy; to do things the way I wanted to do them, to interact with the clients more. Since I’ve been here I feel liberated, as if I’ve had blinkers removed. “Some companies think the whole world revolves around them, but here the excitement comes from client care on a one-to-one basis and so appreciating the bigger picture.” Though his concerns today are confined to London, his comments on the bigger picture are interesting. Many believe that most of the development finance for the up-market areas of London served by Harrods comes from Russian or Arab sources. “It’s a myth that all money in upper prime and super prime markets is from overseas. A great deal of the money is already here, belonging to British subjects,” he told me.
“These people are dealing in real estate so valuable that they can afford to insist on the very best architects and designers.”
“They [architects] have discovered what the residential client actually wants and it’s not necessarily something that looks impressive from the outside, like many of their office blocks. They have learned about comfortable interior details”
teaching career in London. Hopes here were very soon dashed and he decided on a bold career decision by taking a job as a sales negotiator at the Barnard Marcus office in Clapham, south London. He still seemed mildly surprised at this choice when I spoke to him. He discovered he enjoyed house sales, particularly new house sales, and even the uphill battle to sell £115,000 flats in Brixton, then one of the toughest districts in London, gave him a kick.
And because the super-rich require very detailed services from Harrods when they buy into the London lifestyle, these designers have learned to improve their designs by borrowing ideas from the luxury hotel industry. When they move from the Connaught or Claridges into their own piece of London real estate these newcomers still need to be pampered. That’s where Simon Barry and Harrods Estates come in. Sure it’s a niche market, but as niches go it’s about as rich as they come. sh
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124