New Program for Personal Assistants
DomesticBlog.com

Have you always wanted to be a Personal Assistant? If so, answer these questions: 1. Are you the event planner for your family and friends? 2. Do people say you are obsessive with details? 3. Is color-coding and organizing a friend’s closet your idea of a fun Saturday?... read more

 
The Butler's Way: Just So
The New York Times

A bed should not be made immediately after one wakes, but rather, left alone, preferably near an open window, to allow the sleeper’s perspiration to evaporate... read more

 
A School for Jeeves, and Bertie, Too
Wall Street Journal

As anyone who has a huge estate knows, it's hard enough acquiring it, but even harder keeping it up. I'm not talking about estates of the net-worth variety that you'd prefer to keep out of the hands of the I.R.S. and leave to your kids, but of the various de rigueur residences that go along with great wealth... read more

 
12 Minutes of Ironing with Chris Ely
Martha Stewart Living Radio Blog

How long does it take you to iron a shirt? 3 minutes? Maybe 7 if you're really trying to look sharp? For Chris Ely, dean of the Estate Management Studies Program at The French Culinary Institute, it takes about 12 minutes per shirt..." read more

 
Butler School: In Service of Those Who Serve
Bloomberg Business Week

Christopher Ely is prone to philosophizing about his life's work. "You should be invisible, to a certain point," he explains carefully, wearing a navy blue pinstriped suit and well-polished shoes. "You exist, of course, but you don't..." read more

 
Making a Modern Butler
Elle Decor

Like many busy professional women, Dorothy Cann Hamilton, founder of the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan, owns a place in the city and a place in the country. She employs people to take care of her homes, but still her life is more complicated than she would like... read more

 
Butler Who Served British Royals Opens Manhattan School
Associated Press

Butler Christopher Ely has done it all: served dinner to the queen at Buckingham Palace, brushed the bearskin atop a royal guard's helmet, sat on a carriage carrying Princess Diana... read more

 
Royal Wedding: What the Butler Saw
The Telegraph

Had it been any other day then I would have been mildly irritated by the fact that my long-distance phone interviewee, former Royal footman Christopher Ely, was distracted by his television... read more

 
Now, for Just $5,740, You Can Learn to Be a Manservant
New York Magazine's Daily Intel

Christopher Ely, who has served as a butler in Buckingham Palace and also the New York home of the late Brooke Astor, will be teaching classes in the art of service at the French Culinary Institute this spring. In them, you will learn all manner of stately tricks... read more

Ex-Buckingham Palace Butler Teaches Hoity-Toity Service at FCI
Village Voice

Christopher Ely, a proper English butler who has served under the queen at Buckingham Palace, will next month offer a series of weeklong courses in estate-management studies at the French Culinary Institute... read more

 
A New Demand for an Old Industry
Biz Maverick Blog

This subject would not have caught my attention had I not just read about how rich the executives of big companies were becoming…while everyone else was moving backwards... read more