NEWS | Round-up
EXCLUSIVE
‘We’re re-engineering the way people buy luxury kitchens’
Smallbone of Devizes is moving from the Knightsbridge showroom it has occupied for 15 years into a new £15.5m, three-storey 15,500sq ft fl agship store 100 yards down the road. Chris Frankland fi nds out more from Lux Group Holdings chief operating offi cer Bob Moore and value creation offi cer Ronnie Shemesh
but then we’d be faced with just having the ground fl oor. Taking just the ground fl oor would leave the landlord with the issue of trying to lease out the basement and the fi rst and second fl oors. So we decided to take on the whole commitment.
Bob Moore (left) and Ronnie Shemesh (right) with chef Gizzi Erskine at the Brookmans by Smallbone launch event at Heal’s last year
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mallbone of Devizes is this month moving just 100 yards down the road from its current store in 220 Brompton Road to new 15,500sq ft, £15 million fl agship Knightsbridge premises over three fl oors at numbers 197-201. It may just be a stone’s throw geographically, but Ronnie Shemesh, value creation offi cer at parent Lux Group Holdings, promises that it will rewrite the rulebook for retailing top-end kitchens. And, as Lux chief operating offi ce Bob Moore told kbbreview, this store is all about the experience and incorporates such elements as a bespoke high-end fl oral display, art and photography displays, a resident omakaze chef to cook up treats for visitors, and an immersive 6.5m 8K Samsung TV wall that will showcase not just its products but much more. Bob Moore and Ronnie Shemesh reveal the thinking behind the new showroom…
Q & A Q: So what prompted the move?
Bob Moore: When Ronnie took a look at the showroom at 220 Brompton Road, which we’d been in for 15-odd years, his fi rst hesitation was the size of the building. He thought it was in the right area but, because of its size [2,800sq ft] and unusual space, he didn’t think we could do very much more with it as a high-end kitchen showroom. So we talked to the landlord – South Kensington Estates, with whom we have a very good relationship – to see if we could extend it. The only way was through the basement and it would have meant a lot of time, hard work and money. Then South Kensington Estates told us they had another option 100 yards down the road. It was a new building they’d been renovating and had knocked through into one department store. I asked them how big it was, and they said 15,500sq ft. My chin almost hit the fl oor when he told me the size!
This was July 2019. We took a look and we liked the location. We needed at least 6,000 to 7,000sq ft
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Q: So what do you have planned for all that extra space? BM: We are refurbishing the interior and that will be a luxury fl agship store that will give everybody an ‘experiential’ experience. You will not just see kitchens. There’s going to be fl owers from an extremely high-end, bespoke supplier of fl oral arrangements. There will be sculptures, art on the wall, our bespoke furniture throughout, not just kitchens, but wall panelling, bathrooms, wine cellars, and we also have a very close collaboration with Samsung. You can see a 146in 4K Samsung TV in Harrods.
That sells for £425,000 installed. It is going to the kinds of large homes in Hampstead and Highgate that can accommodate a screen of that size. We have gone one stage on and we have a new 8K version of the 4K wall that is 292in corner to corner. There isn’t an 8K currently that sits in a live environment anywhere in the world. When you walk in the store, you will see the 8K
wall on the right-hand side. We are trying to take technology to another level. This 8k digital extravaganza will set Lux Group back a cool £2 million. One night you could come in and there could be an artist or photographer giving a talk and showing what he does with some 8K content. Anyone who comes in that can spend £100,000 on a kitchen tends to have a certain level of wealth. There will also be a live chef experience on the fi rst fl oor. We are trying to create a small Harrods where we can take ultra-high-net-worth individuals and
give them a slightly different experience so they feel like they are in a fi ve-star hotel.
Q: How will you be using that massive screen to enhance the retail experience? Ronnie Shemesh: We are re-engineering the way that people buy luxury kitchens and the Samsung screen is a seminal part of that. When you see it in person, you will be blown away. And it’s not just that we are advertising a screen, we are changing the way people come in and choose their favourite bespoke kitchen. We want to engage the client with food, design and luxury, but also take them through a journey using this immersive screen of all the different choices of timber, including a journey to mid-town Florida, to Central Park Tower in New York [which Smallbone has fi tted out with its kitchen furniture], on a journey to Shanghai or Abu Dhabi while they are sipping champagne in an extravaganza of luxury in this 15,500sq ft space. We are trying to avoid what has been the dread of my life – walking into these retail stores, whether a kitchen or a clothing store, sometimes it is extremely insulting and intimidating and you feel like maybe you shouldn’t be there and there is no place to sit. We are highlighting what we thought was the new frontier for selling luxury kitchens.
RS: If you want a luxury home-theatre experience with all of the joinery. We started another division doing whole-house projects – not just kitchens, but the bathrooms and the bedrooms, media walls. Today, luxury living has made the kitchen an enhanced space where people spend most of their time. Forty years ago, you’d cook in a scullery and eat in dining rooms. Now it is different. We are adapting with the times.
We are trying to create a small Harrods where we can take ultra-high- net-worth
individuals and give them a different experience
· April 2020
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