EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Chelsea club legend calls it a day

EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Chelsea club legend who partied with Prince Harry, James Hewitt and Bob Geldof calls it a day

For the best part of the last four decades, he has been host, friend and – perhaps above all, given the uninhibited behaviour he’s witnessed in the small hours of the night – custodian of secrets.

Now, though, at the age of 78, the man who can truly be called ‘Mr Chelsea’, the urbane, effortlessly engaging Giorgio Burlo, founder of 151 – the basement nightclub in London’s King’s Road from which Prince Harry once beat a retreat via the fire escape – is calling it a day.

The club’s opening night, in 1985, was attended by the so-called ‘Seducer of the Valleys’, baronet Sir Dai Llewellyn, who became a fixture, as did Princess Diana’s one-time lover, James Hewitt. So, too, did doomed socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson – ‘she lived there,’ reflects Giorgio, explaining that Tara was, for a time, girlfriend of one of his sons, Simon – and Bob Geldof, who held ‘lots of parties’ in 151, ‘including his 50th’.

With so many rich memories, Giorgio is only embracing retirement with reluctance – and after a protracted tussle with Cadogan Estates.

Giorgio Burlo, founder of 151 – the basement nightclub in London’s King’s Road from which Prince Harry (pictured on Thursday) once beat a retreat via the fire escape – is calling it a day

Headed, until his death in June, by the uncompromising 8th Earl Cadogan – who memorably closed a restaurant on his 93 Chelsea acres because it failed to impress him – Cadogan Estates refused to renew 151’s lease after the end of lockdown. ‘I was paying rent, but they sent it back,’ Giorgio tells me. ‘I always did what they asked, but, for some reason, they wanted the club back.’

Its closure caused dismay among devotees, with one of them writing: ‘I feel like a piece of me is missing.’

With no sign of the impasse being resolved, Giorgio underwent what was meant to have been a routine thyroid operation, lasting half an hour. But a mistake – ‘the surgeon forgot to close my vein’ – nearly proved fatal. ‘I went into a coma,’ adds Giorgio, who remained unconscious for a week.

Subsequently, he accepted the inevitable, aware that, with a £5.6billion fortune, the Cadogan family could afford to sit tight, even if it meant the club lying empty.

‘They’ve bought the remaining 15 years of my lease,’ he tells me, adding that Cadogan has also handed over a very modest sum for the right to use the 151 name.

But he still has his memories – including those of the two Princes. ‘Harry came a few times,’ he recalls. ‘He walked around, talked to people. William was serious. He was sitting there, in a corner. He behaved like a prince, like someone who would one day be king.’

Another royal, not normally associated with night-time frolics, popped in. ‘Prince Edward came,’ recalls Giorgio, adding that Edward was accompanied by ‘an entourage’ of friends.

There were much older visitors too, including actor Leslie Phillips, forever known for his fruitily voiced ‘Ding Dong’ catchphrase, who cruised into 151 when in his fifties, and lawyer George Carman, who notoriously contrived to secure the acquittal of former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, when Thorpe was accused of conspiring to murder his former lover, Norman Scott. Carman, remembers Giorgio, ‘danced – and everything.’

The club’s opening night, in 1985, was attended by the so-called ‘Seducer of the Valleys’, baronet Sir Dai Llewellyn, who became a fixture, as did Princess Diana ’s one-time lover, James Hewitt. Pictured: 151 Club in Chelsea

Only those who failed to meet Giorgio’s standards of dress and decorum were turned away. George Michael was one of them. ‘He had an earring,’ recalls Giorgio, explaining that men with earrings or tattoos were barred.

More recently, the 151 had become a home from home for the stars of Made In Chelsea, like Binky Felstead. ‘I treat it a bit like a second home,’ Binky said. ‘If I’m not getting enough attention or I’ve had a lot to drink, I just kick off my heels and go to sleep.’

Other club owners might have reacted with fury. Not Giorgio. ‘I thank everyone who visited the club,’ he says.

Of Cadogan Estates, he reflects: ‘It is very well run – ruthlessly well run. Let’s hope that running 151 will get them to £6billion.’

Cadogan Estate confirms that it has purchased the lease for the club as ‘part of an agreement which was reached following the tenant’s desire to retire and close the business’.

A spokesman says: ‘Cadogan recognises the value that establishments such as The 151 Club bring to Chelsea and, for this reason, has taken the decision to retain the premises’ name and use, and will shortly be looking to lease it to a new occupier in keeping with the spirit of the original.’

As potty-mouthed media magnate Logan Roy in Succession, Brian Cox had trouble with his warring children. In real life, his four offspring can be almost as challenging. 

Speaking at a BFI event in London to celebrate his 50-year career, the Scotsman, 77, says: ‘I have grown-up children who I love, but they can be occasionally nasty. My daughter is wonderfully crazy, but the boys can be a little tough to handle.’ 

As potty-mouthed media magnate Logan Roy in Succession, Brian Cox had trouble with his warring children

The smart set’s talking about… Flora’s brush with her Churchillian past

Flora Soames is too young to have met her great-grandfather Sir Winston Churchill, but she chose a venue close to his heart for her book launch.

The interior designer, 40, left, held the party at Lavery’s Studio in Kensington, West London, where Churchill was taught how to paint by artist Sir John Lavery.

Her book, The One Day Box, is a ‘memoir of the houses I’ve lived in and that I love’, she tells me. ‘The book is about my insanely out-of-control collecting habit. I have had a one day box for my entire life: a place where I store things that I could not bear to let go of, from fragments of letters, textiles, old paper and china.’

Her husband, the ceramic artist Alexander ‘Blondie’ Macdonald-Buchanan, was one of her inspirations: ‘He’s incredibly supportive. I feel like it’s very much our tale to tell.’

Flora Soames is too young to have met her great-grandfather Sir Winston Churchill, but she chose a venue close to his heart for her book launch

Jemma: I’m having too much fun to marry

The Duke of Wellington’s son and heir, Arthur Wellesley, is due to be married to Canadian Hayley Whitehead, but his former wife, Jemma Kidd, won’t be exchanging vows with her billionaire boyfriend, Arpad ‘Arki’ Busson, any time soon.

‘I’m not engaged,’ the model and make-up artist tells me at a party in West London. ‘I’ve only just got divorced and I’m enjoying life very much and liking where I am right now.’

She has been going out since 2021 with French businessman Arki, 60, pictured with Jemma. He has two sons with Aussie supermodel Elle Macpherson and a daughter with Pulp Fiction star Uma Thurman.

Jemma, 48, the sister of TV personality Jodie, has three children with Arthur. ‘I’m starting a new business, which is at an embryonic stage,’ she says. ‘I just have my head down because a new business is like having a newborn baby. It’s to do with wellness and everything I am passionate about.’

Jemma Kidd (pictured in 2013), won’t be exchanging vows with her billionaire boyfriend, Arpad ‘Arki’ Busson, any time soon

Jemma Wellesley, Countess of Mornington and Arpad Busson attend the Fashion Trust Arabia Prize 2022 Awards Ceremony

Pregnancy has given Pixie Lott a taste for meat. ‘I’ve been a pescatarian for a long time and now I eat chicken,’ the pop singer tells me. ‘I really enjoy it and I don’t know how this has happened.’ 

Lott, 32, who’s expecting her first child with her husband, the model Oliver Cheshire, adds: ‘I love eating Nando’s and there’s a takeaway near us called The Fat Chicken — that is the one.’ 

Bond girls blast 007 bosses for killing spy

Bond girls are still shaken and stirred from Daniel Craig’s final outing as 007, No Time To Die, when not only did he have a child but the spy was killed off, to boot.

‘The fact Bond died upset me,’ The Spy Who Loved Me star Caroline Munro tells me at the launch of Alistair Guy’s photography exhibition, Incidentals 2, at House of Swaine in Mayfair.

Martine Beswick, who appeared with Sean Connery in From Russia With Love and Thunderball, says of the latest film: ‘I did not like it.’ 

Referring to Lea Seydoux, the French actress who starred opposite Craig, Beswick says: ‘I didn’t like the main Bond girl. [And] I didn’t understand why they had to have a child — it did not work.’

Martine Beswick, who appeared with Sean Connery in From Russia With Love and Thunderball, says of the latest film: ‘I did not like it.’

Dust off your topper, Wills!

It could be rather deafening in Norfolk today, thanks to the ‘Turnip Toffs’, who’ll not only be shooting partridge but letting fly volleys of champagne corks — especially at the van Cutsems’ 4,400-acre Hilborough estate, home to the Prince of Wales’s great friend William van Cutsem and his wife, Rosie.

For Rosie’s younger sister, Lucia Ruck Keene, 37, has got engaged to Old Harrovian landowner Jack Wrigley, 32.

Lucia grew up in Oxfordshire, in the manor house once owned by Jerome K. Jerome, author of the Victorian classic Three Men In A Boat.

But during lockdown she took refuge at Hilborough, where her brother-in-law taught her to box.

‘Apparently, my left hook was like a wet lettuce when I first started,’ reflected Lucia.

Luckily, she was also allowed time to work on Troy London, the fashion label she and Rosie founded a decade ago and which counts the Princess of Wales among its ardent fans.

Lucia Ruck Keene, 37, has got engaged to Old Harrovian landowner Jack Wrigley, 32

Antiques expert Bunny mourns hero husband

She once discovered what was then the world’s most expensive doll, which sold at auction for £188,000. But Antiques Roadshow favourite Bunny Campione has now lost something infinitely more precious — her husband, Major Iain Grahame, who has died aged 91.

During his time in the King’s African Rifles, Grahame had Idi Amin, later dictator of Uganda, under his command. He subsequently visited Uganda with his second wife, Didy, who, to the horror of those present, told Amin to remove the fake VC from his chest.

Amin complied — one of the reasons, perhaps, that Grahame was sent back to Uganda after Amin ordered the execution of Denis Hills, a British writer who’d described him as a ‘black Nero’ and a ‘village tyrant’. Again, Grahame — and Hills — survived.

His first meeting with Bunny was inauspicious: they drove into each other going round a corner on a country lane. But many years later they met again. Love blossomed and they married in 2002.

Heidi Klum’s girl catches up with distant dad 

German model Heidi Klum split up with Italian billionaire Flavio Briatore while she was pregnant with his child.

By the time she gave birth to her daughter, Leni, she was going out with pop star Seal, who later became Leni’s adoptive father.

When Briatore, now 73, was asked about his relationship with Leni seven years ago, he told an Italian newspaper: ‘It’s hard to miss a baby you never see.’

Now, however, he appears keen to make up for lost time. I can reveal that Leni, 19, who appeared in a lingerie advertising campaign with her mother, has been enjoying a holiday aboard a yacht in Monaco with Briatore, pictured.

Leni, 19, who appeared in a lingerie advertising campaign with her mother, has been enjoying a holiday aboard a yacht in Monaco with Briatore, pictured

(Very) modern manners

If you see a familiar-looking head hanging out of a window first thing in the morning, it could be Julia Bradbury’s.

The television presenter, 53, has a health routine that may surprise the neighbours.

‘One of my most important daily rituals involves sticking my head out of the bathroom window, rain or shine, as soon as I wake up,’ she says. ‘The morning light works directly on the human brain, setting the internal clocks that are critical to every cell in our body. It has been a life-changer.’

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