It was he who bought the Birley Annabel's

Robin Birley passes through the dilapidated parts of a block that he bought near Shepherd Market. We are full Mayfair, this historic district of London, where passing licks showcases of art galleries, vendors of yachts or Ben-tley, by crossing Russian, Saudi billionaire knowledge or au gratin of "hedge funds" based in Europe. Robin is the son of Mark Birley, English mounted in London in 1963 Annabel's, the only nightclub where the Queen is never output, where the Beatles were the first, and for a long time the only ones allowed to not carry tie. Elegant, affable, a cigar hand - "Lucy, you want to bring a good cigar to Charlie", asks on his BlackBerry for Charlie Methven, his agent fired four pins-, he explains that he wants to open his own club at the end of next year.

The name is finally chosen. Perhaps "Rupert's" en tribute to his brother disappeared in a river in Togo. Or "Loulou", in reference to his cousin Ruby of the cliff, who was a muse of Yves Saint Laurent. "It is so glamorous!" he enthuses. In 2007, the heartbreak of the family led to the sale of Annabel's. Today, Robin Birley would like his clan reign again on the social life of Mayfair. By modernizing the formula of his father. "The customer will be 100 international, otherwise, it is not viable economically, he said." It will be an English club because this is like the many foreigners in London, but the English will represent less than half the population. "A symbol...

The English have become minority

Paul Morand, whose the splendid portrait of London in 1933, was a bestseller, Mayfair was "less a district as a way of being, a way of looking at life, hold his umbrella in hand throughout the year, did not recognize someone does submitted you that four or five times, to keep his hat melon until July, after the game of Eton against Harrow".have the Oxford accent and did not finish his sentences. "Bounded by Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Hyde Park and Regent's Street, the neighbourhood is still, today, a special way" of life ". In is wearing preferably leading international brands, guarantor in double line, before the shop Prada, his Lamborghini registered to the Qatar or Dubai, and transported by cargo plane for a few days. Or again in a few weeks a year his luxurious House paid 20 million pounds, gained through a few Russian privatizations... On Bond Street, the avenue Montaigne in London, Morand would see more storefronts where are exposed "hams of high time, old Yorkshire or Suffolk, black or amber and the stradivarius". Although you can still admire pheasants hanged by the neck, on Mount Street, in the face of the old boucher Allens...

The decor of Mayfair is perfectly English, as part of its morals. But the English became a minority and this area became the British Home of the silver elite of the world. As Monaco may be in the South of the France. Residents say: here, everything has changed from the 1980s and 1990s. "Mayfair has always attracted Anglophile worldwide, says Charlie Methven.". "But the foreigners of today live next to Aboriginal people, without necessarily trying to meet them," he says. A phenomenon that is clearly accentuated with the acceleration of globalization and the proliferation of fortunes in emerging countries. The mutation continues today at high speed. Despite the financial crisis, real estate agents report that the fortunes of the emerging world rush - cash - paying real estate of luxury in London, as on that of New York and elsewhere. "Headquarters retained his breathing for three months in the first quarter of 2009, after Lehman Brothers crisis, that's all," says a French who created its "hedge fund" and it was based in Mayfair. Hard to say if the British feeding resentment that high foreign company which acquired their most beautiful mansions and even their hunting grounds, to the campaign. "The English like to deal with it, but, socially, is another story...." ", said Marianne Scordel, which the Bougeville Office advises"hedge funds"in London.

Unreal that is this district, Mayfair is administered as all the other "boroughs" (boroughs) of London. It is attached to Westminster. One of its representatives, Jonathan Glanz, go for a walk on this paradise for billionaires look amused by the diversity of the population... and problems to resolve, the simple leakage of water in the real estate projects that can reach several hundreds of millions of books. "In any Westminster, roughly the centre of London, more than 55 of residents are foreign born, notes Jonathan Glanz." Here, the proportion is even higher: as soon as someone made a fortune somewhere in the world, he wants to provide a residence in Mayfair where he will feel free to spend its money with people like him. "There are approximately 2,500 registered on the electoral registers, a resident of 6,000 people population,"with the children and servants"of the Philippines or elsewhere, who can vote. If, in the day, headquarters is of 100,000 people who come to work-in stores, "hedge funds" but also the headquarters of large companies who were there before them, as the editor of American magazine Condé Nast and the multinational SABMiller beer - the small size of the population

is felt at night. Most of the streets empty, buildings are extinguished late afternoon and not shine to Windows that decorate their ground floor. Mayfair pretended to sleep...

Real estate extravagance

Extravagance is common in real estate matters, even if the district formally owned two thirds at Grosvenor Estate, society of the Duke of Westminster, a quirk of the English property market which gradually disappears. It remains a few institutions austere as the secret residence Albany, a haven single which has housed the poet lord Byron, the very important Prime Minister William Gladstone or, in the 1960s, actor Terence Stamp. In the corridors of this building between Piccadilly and Saville Row which allowed women with reserve, one would think is a high school in France. But the vast fortunes of today are more resistant to modern comfort. "I noticed by going to an appointment that all houses a Street North of Berkeley Square each had their pool in the basement", tells a different manager of "hedge fund" French. No doubt possible: If the Qatar Fund buys as expected the modernist building of the Embassy of the United States on Grosvenor Square to turn it into a hotel, the setting will be treated. As should be that of the Mall by the same Emirate from Selfridge's, the cheap London, on Oxford Street.

The more ridiculous in the microcosm of Mayfair is perhaps the presence of social housing, which the inhabitants - ironically - are bombarded with leaflets offering to become holders of American Express Platinum card. Near the residence where the fashion designer Alexander McQueen comes to commit suicide, Jonathan Glanz tends his arm to two identical buildings, on the power plant of the neighbourhood, beautifully hidden by a brick terrace. "On the one hand, a two-piece is worth 1 million pounds, on the other, these same apartments are rented for 80 pounds per week," said. Step obvious to recipients of social benefits, of their errands when the lesser wine seller proposes vintages of 20,000 pounds.

The richness of the shoreline is part of the reasons why "hedge funds", these funds expected to be more shrewd in their investments than mutual funds for simple employees, settled in Mayfair. This Manager does cache: "between my Office and the Ritz where to lodge my clients, there is Bond Street, where their companions slam their money while I go with them", he explains. To be credible to this clientele, "hedge funds" transitioning to sometimes rent the decor of their offices. It allows to display works of art. "This means that you are rich enough and"successful"duty exempt", decodes a financial. "hedge funders" recognize themselves in the streets, where they intersect when they walk to their appointments in major hotels around. They may also fall on the leaders of large companies which cycled through appointments in Mayfair, after to be run in the previous day in the City with the conventional fund managers, not quite as "sophisticated" for high flight of Mayfair financial...

An ideal place for adventure racers

But the quarter also saw the night. A man, Richard Caring, symbolizes him only the Mayfair "by night". Of the Caprice at the Ivy, Scott's and Harry's Bar', where City Hall has installed, to his dismay, the very recent Vélib station London, one which is launched in the high society in 2005 by organizing a huge ball in St. Petersburg for a charity association extends his empire weekly. It was he who bought the Birley Annabel's. At the way Richard Caring benefits in full of the internationalization of Mayfair, but in the opposite direction: because all these typical restaurants in London, he now wants to in decline signs in Dubai, Los Angeles, Hong Kong... For the anecdote, another restaurant reflects the power of attraction of Mayfair. It is The Square. This is where that would have landed the cellar of Vivendi, the French group forced to sell assets at the time of its demise.

All that money can only attract runners adventures around the world. Prostitution is not uncommon to Mayfair, to use an "understatement" English. "There are still 15 brothels around Shepherd Market, this popular neighbourhood, and not expensive corner!" Robin Birley fun showing the buildings that surround his future club. A high street, the rents are huge: I love the contrast with the dilapidated side of this corner. "Borders are sometimes more blurred. "You find yourself in a very chic nightclub with a large blonde girl dancing on your side and you ask:"Well, what is this is my new aftershave". ", jokes a"hedge funder ". The adventure of business generally in seized more than one in this area, and everyone is no fortune. "This House, now on sale for 30 million pounds despite its disaster State, was owned by a businessman who could never be wrong once it somewhere a case, says Jonathan Glanz.". Until he attempts to swallow more that he could not chew and finds himself in bankruptcy. This happens every day in Mayfair. "And it was, finally, that the district has not changed this:" gossip for societies, worldly covetousness, beauty regarded as currency, rich marriage, the drinking songs around the punch bowl, dispelled a Uncle died in India, this inheritance is Mayfair, wrote Morand; " "Mayfair is still inhabited by all the"gentlemen Surface".