WHEN ONE PARTICULAR guest visits the Savoy Hotel in London, butler Seán Davoren knows what his next task is: order goats’ milk from a farm for the woman’s morning bath.
It’s just one of the many unusual tasks he has to undertake as a butler at the prestigious hotel, but for him, it’s all part of making people’s stay enjoyable.
How did a man from Limerick become a butler in London?
Davoren began his career at 19, moving from Limerick to London to study for a hospitality diploma with Claridges.
Being “very interested in taking service to another level”, Davoren did a £4,000 butler course and soon found himself working for the English royal family. A stint working for a family in the Middle East followed that, but when you work in the private sector, your life isn’t your own. “You become an extension to the family you’re looking after,” said Davoren.
He came back to London, 25 years ago, met his wife and thus changed the dynamics of his career path. Back he went to the hotel trade.
For him, butlers bring the personal touch to hotels. They tailor the service to the guest’s needs.
“We had a philosophy at the department at that time: We’ll do anything for you as long as it’s legal,” he said of his previous job.
Here’s how it works:
I suppose you are the wind beneath somebody’s wing, you are their PA while they were in London, you arrange their restaurants, you arrange their transport, you arrange their morning tea, you arrange their newspapers, you ironed them because if it was the lower tabloids the black would come off on your hands. If you are a woman and you had a manicure the night before I’d bring you white gloves so you wouldn’t damage your hands.
Here’s how Davoren would set a table:
(Video TheJournal.ie)
Four years ago, he moved to the Savoy after it underwent extensive restoration work. “Each place you move, you bring in something new,” he explained. For him, that was meeting the guests at the footpath, and bringing them straight to their room, bypassing reception,.
If you’re a guest of Davoren’s, he’ll unpack your clothes for you, make sure your wardrobe is colour-coordinated, run you a bath, polish your shoes. The list goes on.
Of course everyone looks at Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs; there are certain assumptions, but in my role I am meant to educate you about what to do with your butler.
Lifestyle manager
“I think a butler now is more of a lifestyle manager,” mused Davoren. “It’s not like it was in Upstairs Downstairs, you have to be much… you manage the budget for a house, you manage the flight arrangements, hotel arrangements. It’s more of a PA side to it as well and that’s part and parcel of what the job is all about.”
If asked to describe his job, he says: “I’m into detail”. What might not matter to the rest of us – is that knife straight, that napkin ironed? – matters to him.
Every morning, he asks his staff to remove their shoes. “If I see a hole in your sock or your tights, I will be fuming because you know it’s there and that means you’re not mentally prepared for the job you’re going to do today.”
Suit of armour
When we met, Davoren was wearing a full morning suit. It is, he explained, his suit of armour. Donning it is the sign that: “This is when I have to turn into the butler.”
He has a “normal life” outside of being a butler. “It’s not all glamour. Because I live in a fantasy world. But the people that are living that, it’s not a fantasy world, it’s real.”
I’m a normal guy who is a husband and who had children and who lets his wife run the house.
Davoren, who was in town to give a talk on the secrets of being a butler at Galway’s Hotel Meyrick, aims to show that you can make a good living out of being a butler, and that the role is valued and needed.
If it’s the sort of career you are thinking of, just make sure you’re a good listener.
To know exactly what his guests want, Davoren has to read between the lines. “You will never tell the full story. I have to be listening, I have to be very careful I do listen”.
As for the woman who takes the goats’ milk baths? It’s all in a day’s work for Davoren.
It isn’t just going to the supermarket and picking up a few pints of goats milk. No, I have to go to the farm, it has to be full fat. That’s fine you warm the milk put it in the bath, But then after that, I have to heat about 40 bottles of Evian water, and she goes into the Evian water after. That’s a ritual in the morning.
He doesn’t see such requests as bizarre.
“I have to find a solution for you, and that’s what my job is and that’s what my role is: finding solutions.”
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