Having Alex Polizzi pay a visit to your hotel would be a daunting enough
experience. After all, the scion of the Forte luxury-hotel dynasty, who took
over as television’s Hotel Inspector on Five in July last year, is known for
her loathing of shoddy housekeeping and her critiques of struggling
hoteliers’ skills, often delivered, Gordon Ramsay-style, in a tirade of
four-letter words. So it’s a brave man who would let her move into his home
— especially one who has been master of his own space for many years, and
admits to not being particularly domesticated.
“Before she moved in, this place was a simple bachelor pad,” her husband of
two years, Marcus Miller, says of the two-storey, two-bedroom mews house in
Clapham, southwest London, which he bought eight years ago for £750,000. “It
was just how I wanted it. There was none of this crap here,” he says,
pointing to the eruditely packed bookshelves and modern artwork lining the
open-plan dining area.
“Honestly, darling,” counters Polizzi, 38, “before I moved in, all there was
in the living room was a GameRacer, a huge television and some dodgy prints
of semi-nude women lying in the sand. There were no fittings at all! In the
bedroom, there was a bed and two bedside tables: nothing else. Besides, you
know you have absolutely no taste.”
At this, Miller, 42 — a fourth generation master baker who provides bread to
Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants, the Caprice group and Fortnum & Mason
— stays silent. After all, it’s hard to argue about what works in a room
with someone like Polizzi, who has a five-star background. She is the
granddaughter of the hotel magnate Lord Forte, the niece of Rocco Forte and
the daughter of Olga Polizzi, the design director of the Rocco Forte
Collection, which will soon have 15 hotels in its worldwide superluxe chain.
She runs one of her mother’s two hotels: the Hotel Endsleigh, on the edge of
Dartmoor, which, with its 16 cosy, Regency-styled rooms and roaring log
fires, practically invented “boutique”.
“We are two alpha males trying to share a space,” Polizzi says of their
Clapham home. “But I simply must have my head on things to do with homes and
decoration.” So, when she moved into the mews house, lock, stock and barrel,
from the Bayswater flat she has owned since she was 21, she set about making
some changes. “I did absolutely everything,” she says.
In came a beautiful pale-green wooden kitchen with green marble worktops to
replace the simple cabinets; in the pale-floored, atrium-style living area,
Polizzi added benches by Andrew Martin, covered in vibrant Missoni Thonon
fabric; and throughout the house she hung her collection of modern art and
photographs. (She is clearly infuriated by the “awful” large-scale landscape
pictures, by the photographer Harry Cory Wright, a friend of Miller’s, that
are still hanging above the huge cream sofa). In the ground-floor master
bedroom, piles of monogrammed cushions cover the bed.
Polizzi came not just with a celebrated name, but with considerable baggage.
“I just love to have the right thing for every occasion,” she says. The
kitchen cupboards, Miller says, are practically emptied every time she
entertains. Duck-egg-blue Volga Linen napkins, embroidered with the couple’s
initials, make an appearance, as does her silverware, passed down as family
heirlooms.
Oh, and bowls. Scores of them. Sicilian striped ones, glass ones, engraved
ones, Sophie Conran ones, multicoloured plastic ones and baking ones. “I
love, love, love them,” she says, as Miller looks on, bemused. “For pasta
and risotto and great fresh vegetable salads, with carrots and white beans.
I adore them, darling!”
Her bedroom cupboards are piled with linen, even though much of it wouldn’t
fit any modern bed — she has “tiny” sheets from her paternal mother’s
wedding trousseau (her father, Count Alessandro Polizzi, died in a car
accident when Alex was nine) — and her collection of Rajasthani and Moroccan
bedspreads. “My mother says I treat the world as if it were a bazaar. I
absolutely love to shop.” She lists Alfies Antique Market, in Marylebone,
and Porta Romana, in Chelsea Harbour, as London favourites.
It’s no surprise that the Oxfordeducated Polizzi applies the same exacting
standards to her own home as she does to the hotels she assesses. Fresh
flowers in every room are a must — she says she finds it hard to leave the
house if the arrangements aren’t in place — as is immaculate tidiness. “If a
room is perfect, it’s far more relaxing to be in,” she says. “It needs to be
completely tidy and ordered — there’s nothing worse than piles of junk,
which should be shut away elsewhere.”
It’s a rule she applies to their 18-month-old daughter’s things. Baby Olga —
whom Polizzi affectionately refers to as “Fatty” — has her own bedroom
downstairs, in which all her things are neatly tucked away. And Polizzi is
adamant that pink is not allowed in the house. “When she is old enough to
buy her own clothes, then she can have pink, if she wants it,” she says. “I
just don’t understand why things for little girls have to be sickly pink,
and things for boys blue.”
In the home, it seems, what Polizzi says goes. And Miller — who used to be a
body builder — isn’t arguing. In one area, however, he has had a small
triumph. “Marcus,” Polizzi confides, “made me take all my penises down, as
he didn’t really like them.” By this, she is referring to part of her
collection of what she terms “semi-erotica”.
In the hallway, framed gold capital letters pick out the word “fetish”,
opposite an oil painting of a woman cycling, naked from the waist down, in
killer green heels. In the bedroom, delicate line drawings of female bottoms
line the walls; elsewhere, tucked behind books and sculptures out of
Miller’s view, are models, prints and collages of male members. Polizzi says
her aunts have given her “lots of money, as a wedding gift, to buy a good
piece of art”. You suspect, however, that a large phallus was not exactly
what they had in mind.
The artwork isn’t all blue, though. Among the collectables are Eric Gill
drawings, a Clive Barker silver trunk and an Annie Leibovitz photograph of
Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in drag.
Yet, with Polizzi’s hoard of homewares expanding (and, hopefully their family,
too: she confides that they are “desperately trying to have another baby —
it’s fun!”), the pair have bought a five-bedroom house, also just off
Clapham Common, which is in need of refurbishment.
They plan to rent out the mews house while hanging on to their other
properties: Polizzi’s cottage in Milton Abbot, Devon, where she lives when
she is on duty as general manager at the Endsleigh, and Miller’s house in
northeast Brazil, where he goes to indulge his passion for kitesurfing. “I
used to go every six weeks,” he says. “But then I got married.”
They also spend long weekends at Friston Place, an Elizabethan manor in East
Sussex owned by Polizzi’s stepfather, the broadcaster and royal biographer
William Shawcross. “I’m all about family and being at home,” she says.
Yet with Polizzi so busy — she has just started filming a new series of The
Hotel Inspector, and is working on a book about her favourite 52 hotels in
the world — surely Miller will have a key role to play in setting up the new
home? “Well, he just pays for things and does the basic maintenance, whereas
I’m decoration,” Polizzi answers for him, looking at him questioningly.
“I’m leaving it up to Alex,” he says.
“Well done, darling,” she replies. “He wouldn’t have said that two years ago,
but we finally got there.”
hotelendsleigh.com
How to make your home Polizzi perfect
- For a room to be relaxing, it must be perfectly tidy and clean. At the end
of the day, piles of junk should be tidied away, along with any work notes
and kids’ paraphernalia, so you can unwind n Imagining you always have
guests about to arrive will help you to keep your home immaculate. There is
never an excuse for a smeared wineglass or a badly folded napkin n In your
cupboards, have the right thing for every occasion — the right
glassware, the bowls, the special utensils for julienning vegetables...
- Decoration should be simple, with bold, clean lines and uncluttered spaces.
Family heirlooms such as crystal, silverware and porcelain personalise a
space n Hotel guests must feel as if their ensuite lavatory has never been
used — try to follow that advice at home, too n High-quality linen is a
must. Hours of ironing is the sacrifice you have to make for a perfectly
dressed bed n Piles and piles of cushions on beds add a luxurious touch.
Having different sizes makes for comfortable bedtime reading n Establish a
relationship with a good local florist — fresh flowers, at all times, are an
absolute necessity
Your Comments
Order By: