When your home is your castle, you might as well fill it with furniture that’s fit for a king.
Or maybe an earl.
Charles, the Ninth Earl Spencer, otherwise known as Princess Diana’s younger brother, was in Colorado on Saturday to talk about Theodore Alexander’s Althorp Living History fine furniture collection, sold in Denver through Howard Lorton Galleries. The collection is based on original antiques at the Spencer family’s 500-year-old estate in Northamptonshire, England.
Although questions about the late Princess of Wales are strictly off limits when chatting with Spencer, 44, The Denver Post did spend a few minutes with him discussing the history and significance of the furnishings with which he grew up and continues to maintain.
How were these antiques amassed?
I think it’s important for people to remember that nobody set about collecting them. This is the accumulation of 19 generations of different people from one family and their various tastes. The common denominator is that my family has been lucky enough to be able to use the best craftsmen in Europe for their furniture.
Are there other reasons this furniture is special?
It’s special to me because I’ve grown up surrounded by it. It’s really fantastic for me to see it out in the world. We started just in the States, but now it’s in Russia, the Arab countries, China, India (and) Japan. The owner of this store was pointing out that round dining table with the mechanized (parts) — so you don’t have to store away the leaves. Since he’s had that in, he’s sold 13 of them. It’s amazing to think that 13 families in Denver are enjoying that table, which my family enjoyed privately for 200 years.
Describe Althorp for people who have never seen it.
The house has got 90-plus rooms in it, and it’s still very much a family home. I’ve got six kids, ages 2 to 17, and they have the run of the place. It’s home to them as it has been for generation after generation of my family.
When I drive through the gates I do feel as though I’m going back two centuries. The landscape is unmarked by any modern touch.
What are some of the challenges of maintaining such an old home?
It’s quirky, the house. You find things. We had a problem with wasps and eventually we found a nest that was the size of a Mini (Cooper). It was tucked away in an eave.
It’s endless. I’ve re-plumbed the house. I’ve reheated the house. I’ve upgraded the fire alarm twice, and I’ve only been in charge for 16 years.
It’s a rather wonderful white elephant in a way. It’s rather mad for anyone to live in a house like this in this day and age. We heat and cool pretty much the whole thing. Because of the quality of the objects, they have to be kept at a certain temperature.
We have had moths in a couple of the rooms, which do a lot of damage. When something gets moths, we have to put on a freeze to kill the eggs. So we have a moth man, and he comes in every three months and sets little traps around the place.
Do you have a favorite room in the house, or a favorite piece of furniture?
I like the library very much. It’s a beautiful room. It would be about 80 feet long and 15 feet wide, and it’s got beautiful pillows on either end of it. . . .
Althorp used to house the greatest private library in Europe, but that was disposed of because of the Americans. When you opened up the prairies and started exporting grain about 120 years ago, it undercut our agricultural business. Because of that, we had to get rid of some 43,000 books. But, forgive and forget.
And I love the Washington Chest. It belonged to George Washington’s family when they lived in England. They were distant cousins of the Spencers and fell on hard times in the 1500s, so we put them up in a house in the local village, which is still called Washington Cottage. They left that chest behind, and I still use the original for my cricket and tennis gear.
Elana Ashanti Jefferson: 303-954-1957 or ejefferson@denverpost.com
