Stubbed out! Mayfair club calls time on Dunhill scion
HE WOuLD appear to be perfectly equipped for social success, being charming and handsome, in a Maxim de Winter sort of way.
But that hasn’t prevented Piers Dunhill, great-great grandson of tobacco magnate Sir Alfred Dunhill, from adding an unfortunate addition to his curriculum vitae.
He has, i can disclose, been informed that his membership of 5 Hertford Street, the most stylish of London clubs, is at an end.
‘ His membership has been withdrawn,’ one of Dunhill’s admirers tells me, adding that the 29- year- old had been given warnings for ‘conducting business’ at the Mayfair club which, since opening in 2012, has entranced everyone from george and Amal Clooney to Kate Moss and assorted sprigs of the aristocracy.
5 Hertford Street declines to comment. But its founder and owner, robin Birley, who, abetted by society designer Jane Ormsby gore, lavished £25 million on it before the first members flocked in, has exacting standards.
And it seems Dunhill, an adventurous, restless figure, had cultivated too broad a range of business acquaintances for Birley’s scrupulous tastes. ‘robin didn’t like some of the characters Piers brought in,’ i’m told.
Perhaps that’s inevitable, given the scope of Dunhill’s projects.
Briefly a director of his mother’s cannabidiol health firm, he later teamed up with a food scientist in a bid to create an alcoholic tomato sauce.
There was also Dunhill Bismarck group, which listed Princess Alessandra von Bismarck as co-founder and helped companies raise funds from ‘contacts all over the world’.
At one stage, Dunhill, who enjoyed a romance with Made in Chelsea star Tabitha Willett, was dogged by malicious allegations on a website with the domain name ‘ Piers. Dunhill. conman’. Happily, it was later taken down.
Dunhill does not respond to invitations to discuss his terminated membership — too busy, perhaps, with his latest enterprise, Dunhill Ventures, ‘an exclusive platform’ for hedge funds, ‘blockchain and tech visionaries’ and even ‘ heads of state’ and ‘royal Family members’ .