We are seeking a House Manager for a beautiful old manor house with 16 acres of land that has recently renovated located in Oxfordshire near the Warwickshire border. The estate includes the main house, 3 flats, several outbuildings, swimming pond, both formal and naturalistic gardens, vegetable and cut flower production, glass house, pottery studio, wood shop, painting studio, drawing studio etc. It will also soon have animals.
The house serves a dual function as a private home and a place to host the principal’s retreats, guests and clients. The principal’s primary residence is in London so the focus is on weekends and holidays, though may also include some weekday use.
The principals are seeking to build a long term, dedicated and experienced team who can work flexibly. The family is a blended family, with children, grown children and two dogs. The family have a dynamic lifestyle with high standards for personal life and entertaining and have created their home not only as a showcase for their passions of art, nature and design but as a warm, comfortable and inviting sanctuary for busy lives.
DUTIES:
- To be a single main point of contact for the principals for everything related to this home, reporting directly to the Head of Property and People (Chief of Staff COS) and the principals
- To ensure the smooth running of the household, in a landscape of shifting priorities with different rates of occupation, different celebrations, different family members and guests.
- To build and manage a team of the other household staff – full time, part time and freelance, so that everyone knows what to do and to ensure that each team member is working to the best of his/her abilities. Managing staff rotas of the household team and working closely with the garden team. To work closely with the COS to ensure HR protocol is followed to the highest standard. This includes recruitment, onboarding, training, monitoring anyone directly under your management.
- To manage additional support staff and subcontractors as needed and when required related to the maintenance, renovation and service of the household. This includes getting quotes, managing invoicing and budgets, overseeing work, giving clear job briefs, ensuring health and safety is followed, etc.
- To manage all the maintenance contracts related to the household including utilities, insurance, swimming pond, sauna, hot tub, fireplaces, and anything else related to the property.
- To work closely with the Head Gardener on areas of overlap – such as produce for the home, fresh flowers for the home, regular maintenance and cleaning of internal areas that the garden team use.
- To liaise clearly and effectively with the principal’s other personal and professional staff as needed to ensure smooth running and to eliminate any surprises and friction.
- To ensure that good care is given to the family’s animals – currently two small dogs but may, in future, include horses, pigs, chickens, ducks, etc. working closely with the garden team to ensure a high standard of animal welfare.
- To create and manage all the organisational administration, including the creation of a house manual, inventories, details of supplies across the board, ensuring clear alignment with storage spaces, maintenance schedules, packing lists, Ocado orders, etc. This includes the maintenance of excellent household records, budgets and continued updating of the house manual. This also includes making sure that the household team follow the guidance within the house manual at all times.
- To lead on household maintenance, including any repairs and/or minor renovations. This includes utilising the internal team to the best of their abilities, or working with outside subcontractors, the procurement of comparative quotes, negotiating best value, booking in and overseeing any repair or minor renovation works as needed. Seek out best value for money with subcontractors and maintenance agreements and build good relationships with these entities.
- Manage and ensure all regular maintenance is done on the property whether monthly, quarterly or annual – such as wood chip pellet boiler, wood log delivery, LPG gas tank, starlink, swimming pond, electricity meters, Thames Water & Castle Water, internet, sky TV etc.
- Manage packing and unpacking, ensuring the principals have everything they need for each trip. This may entail coordinating the movement of items between the Manor house, the London house and abroad, as may be required.
- Manage and oversee each of the principals’ wardrobes with help from the housekeepers. The principals have a fair number of vintage clothes, which require a certain level of care, and the wardrobes will likely need to be seasonally adjusted.
- To be responsible for all household purchases, including but not limited to, food, toiletries & sundries, cleaning products, wine, scented candles, animal care products, as well as any homewares that might from time to time need replacing (in which case, to be approved by the principal). This requires the maintenance of good inventories and supplies across the board and should be aligned with the storage spaces on hand.
- To keep all areas of the house, stables and wider estate buildings organised and tidy with the rest of the team.
- Manage all budgets and accounts for the household (in collaboration with other family office staff members.
- Oversee the proper care of high value art works and design objects on the property (mainly paintings, framed artworks-on-paper and sculptures), which will require a close working relationship with the principals’ art installers / art restorers / framers etc.
- Pitch in at the house and be generally available if and when other members of staff are on holiday or are off sick to help with basic tidying, organisation, cleaning or cooking to ensure smooth running of the household.
- Undertake any other duties reasonably assigned to you as House Manager managing a household team.
PERSON SPECIFICATION:
- Must be technology-proficient, in order to keep the mechanical and electrical, and security systems in good working order, along with the wifi and A/V needed to run these systems.
- Must have a ‘hands-on / collaborative’ attitude, ideally one who has previous experience as a head housekeeper, and happy to work with the other housekeepers.
- Must be open-minded (or be willing to take instruction) around health and sustainability This household is organic and focused on being as sustainable as possible. This person needs to understand about reducing exposure to chemicals, sourcing products that are compostable / do not have forever chemicals, etc. and seeking the best ways forward to reduce waste. The estate is certified organic and the principals will continue to seek this certification. Caring about nature is a requisite, as the whole property is designed with the notion of connection to nature and creativity.
- Must be very organised with high attention to detail, good at organising spaces so that household items can be easily found , ensuring that clutter is reduced and nothing is purchased unless needed. It is very important that the household is not wasteful.
- Must be proficient in Outlook, Excel, Dropbox, Word, Google Docs and other similar platforms.
Working Hours: 40 Hours, Thursday to Monday, 8am to 5pm, with 1 hr break
Accommodation: 1 or 2 bedroom newly renovated apartment on the estate
Salary: £60-65,000GPA
REF: S&W#3670055
