The butler does it

It's the type of problem most of us probably wish we had. You need a butler to help with the management of the household and the entertaining at your estate. But in an age where Fox is a network, as opposed to something you hunt, where on earth do you look•

Mind, we're talking a real, honest-to-goodness "Very good, sir" butler who knows how to polish silver and can put the perfect crease in a pair of trousers -- those starchy, hovering eminences who serve silently and tirelessly in films such as "Gosford Park" and "The Remains of the Day."

You'll find no butlers in the Yellow Pages. Nor will you find them at the Duquesne Club, that patrician redoubt of privilege and tradition, where Pittsburgh's captains of industry have hefted snifters of brandy and exclaimed over the financial pages since 1873.

Still, that doesn't stop some butler shoppers from trying to hire away one of the club's captains. They already have a head start in butler training, says Irma Thornton, director of human resources.

"Their service would be good in a household because they know a lot about beverage service and food service," Thornton says. "They know about the linens and the napkins, and they know how to set the table for different types of service. They know the correct serving utensils. They know which wine glasses should be used with which wines."

Thornton says they receive about 8-10 calls a year from people looking for a lead on where to hire a butler. She diplomatically steers them to an agency in New York.

Butlers are the aristocrats of servants. In fiction and film, they're often portrayed as guardians of tradition and protocol who nevertheless endeavor to cater to his lord or ladyship's every wish.

The term "butler" derived from the French bouteillier , or cup bearer, and originally denoted a servant in charge of the wine cellar. It came to mean a manservant and head of the household, responsible for the food service, wine, silverware and the deportment of other servants.

Today, butlers work in hotels, yachts, spas, embassies and cruise ships in addition to private households.

Celebrity Cruises includes the services of a butler to passengers who book a suite on one of their ships. The butler can help them unpack, shine their shoes, bring their newspaper and serve afternoon tea, says Tavia Robb, a public-relations manager for the cruise line.

If you can't cadge an invitation to a dinner at certain private estates set back amidst the hunting-print scenery of Fox Chapel, Sewickley Heights or Ligonier, a butler sighting is a 90-minute drive from Pittsburgh into the Laurel Mountains to Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and Spa in Farmington. There, Falling Rock, a 42-room luxury hotel, has 10 butlers on staff.

"The thing that they pride themselves on is doing more than you ever expected them to," says Kay Maghan, director of public relations.

Guests may find themselves in the white-gloved hands of lead butler Tommy Dewitt.

Dewitt, 31, reports for duty in black and gray pinstriped pants, a five-button cutaway coat and white gloves. The days can be long, he says, but he loves his work.

"If I was a private butler in a residence, it's the same thing day in and day out," he says. "As a hotel butler, usually every couple of days the scenery changes."

A native of Cheat River, W.Va., Dewitt had considered becoming a fireman. He began working as a valet at Nemacolin Woodlands in 1997 and was promoted to hotel bellman at the Chateau LaFayette, another hotel on the resort property.

"A lot of time in the movies, the butler is blown a little bit out of proportion," he says. "Do we do those things• Absolutely."

The traditional role of a butler is that of the head of a formal household, says Brian Taylor, owner of New York Domestics in Manhattan.

"Where there's an estate manager and a full staff, a butler typically does the meeting and the greeting of the guests, will do serving, handling of fine antiques and collectibles, and assist in managing the staff," he says.

A butler also might perform valet services, which entail taking care of his employer's clothing, drawing his bath or giving him a shave. In some less-formal households, the butler might perform laundry, chef or chauffeur duties.

The Calendar Group in Stamford, Conn., provides domestic and corporate staffing and concierge services to private families, celebrities and high-level executives. It places 8-10 butlers a year, says co-founder and principal Nathalie Laitmon, including households in the Pittsburgh area.

"Just because it's the title of butler doesn't mean it's something that's antiquated, that you can't utilize in your daily life," she says. "It's very relevant for today's busy, busy families."

The demand for butlers exceeds the supply, she says. Butlers trained in the European tradition are particularly coveted. But the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 have increased restrictions on foreigners working in the United States, so they are more difficult to come by.

"They see service as an art," Laitmon says. "They have a hospitality mindset. They can easily pick up on preferences and anticipate what employers need, as though you were in a small luxury hotel in your own home."

In America, aspiring butlers might train at the Starkey International Institute for Household Management in Denver, or at the International Institute of Modern Butlers, which has offices in Clearwater, Fla.

"Either they're hospitality people or they worked in a high-end hotel or restaurant or they've heard of this kind of world," Laitmon says of the Calendar Group's candidates.

A full-time butler can earn $70,000 a year. Some, who may travel with a family on a yacht or private jet, could earn as much as $200,000 a year.

"The bigger the lifestyle of the family, the more they can earn," Laitmon says.

Who hires butlers• Busy families where both parents work, for one. Today's accelerated lifestyles, with Blackberries and cell phones, might leave parents no time to organize their closets or do laundry.

"In L.A., you'll be a celebrity butler and there will be a high degree of entertainment," Laitmon says. "In New York and Connecticut, you'll be butler to a hedge-fund guy and there will be a great deal of logistics."

Falling Rock's Dewitt underwent six weeks of training under the tutelage of Steven Ferry, an Englishman, former butler and chairman of the International Institute of Modern Butlers. The curriculum included valet duties, such as ironing and packing clothing, as well as manners and deportment.

Ferry, who has traveled to Qatar and Bahrain and Nassau to train butlers, says his primary focus is changing the mindset of the candidates, or what he calls the American tendency toward "the effort to be interesting."

He cites a certain species of American waiter as the chief offender in this department.

"Often the waiter is the center of attention," he says. "Often he'll come and interrupt the guests. He will do it quite frequently."

A proper butler, by contrast, remains unobtrusive. The profession places a high premium on intuition.

"Our biggest thing is to read the guest," Dewitt says. "If you're driving in from Pittsburgh and you had a stressful day in the office, part of my job is to focus on that. If you're tired and you just want to get a drink and take a nap, I'm not going to give you the whole 20-minute spiel."

While no butler candidate is asked to affect a British accent, colloquialisms such as "OK" and "cool" are discouraged, Ferry says.

"None of us are born butlers," he says. "We have to make people into butlers."

As part of the training, Ferry even shows candidates clips from the movies "Arthur" and "The Remains of the Day," which feature John Gielgud and Anthony Hopkins in their respective roles of butlers.

"What 'Arthur' shows is that (Gielgud) is a gentleman who really does care for his boss," Ferry says. "He hits him over the head at least twice. He's acting as his father, rather than his butler, and I really don't think that's a very good role model."

Literary service

Fictional butlers have served writers and playwrights far beyond the cliched cornpone of "The butler did it."

One of the most enduring incarnations of the butler is that of an acerbic social commentator whose intellect is superior to the people he works for.

A list of butlers:

"The Admirable Crichton": The 1902 play by "Peter Pan" author J.M. Barrie satirized the lack of self-reliance in the British upper class. When Lord Loam, his family and their servants are stranded on an island, the butler Crichton becomes the leader by virtue of his innate abilities, while the coddled aristocrats are relegated to subordinate status. Several film versions were made.

Jeeves: English writer P.G. Wodehouse created the immortal Jeeves in a series of riotously funny short stories, beginning in the '20s. Narrated by hapless aristocrat Bertie Wooster, the stories usually involved the resourceful and unflappable Jeeves extricating his bumbling employer from embarrassing predicaments. It also was made into a British television series -- "Jeeves and Wooster" -- with Stephen Fry as Jeeves and Hugh Laurie ("House") as Wooster, and an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, "By Jeeves." Incidentally, Jeeves' first name is Reginald.

Benson DuBois: Robert Guillaume played the sardonic valet on the television series "Soap," which ran from 1977-80.

Lurch: The butler in "The Addams Family" television series was played by Pittsburgh native Ted Cassidy. He announced himself with a booming, "You rang?"

Hobson: In the 1981 comedy "Arthur," Sir John Gielgud played the supercilious, tart-tongued manservant and father figure to Dudley Moore's drunken millionaire playboy.

James Stevens: Anthony Hopkins played the devoted but repressed butler in the 1993 film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, "The Remains of the Day." His lifetime loyalty to the family is tested by the Nazi sympathies of his employer and the romantic attentions of a new housekeeper, played by Emma Thompson.

Edmund Blackadder: Rubber-faced Rowan Atkinson played the butler to George the Prince Regent in the -- what else• -- British television series "Blackadder the Third."