Party island Lord’s manservant wins £ 22m slice of his fortune ( while grandson is left a stone phallus!)
Bitter battle over St Lucia estate of Colin Tennant ends . . . but valet says: ‘I have not ended up with right share’
HE IS the devoted manservant who gave long years of service to the eccentric aristocrat feted for his famously decadent parties.
And now, after a long legal battle following the death eight years ago of his master Colin Tennant, the third Lord Glenconner, Kent Adonai has at last been rewarded with a multi-million-pound fortune.
The wrangling over the estate of Princess Margaret’s old friend began when Lord Glenconner died in 2010, aged 83, and it emerged he had left everything to Adonai.
The legacy was contested by the aristocrat’s family, who claimed he had not been of sound mind when he rewrote his will.
Now the case between Lord Glenconner’s grandson and heir to the title, Cody Tennant, 24, and Adonai has finally been settled in the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.
The Mail on Sunday has seen the sealed legal document settling the dispute, with parcels of land and shares divided up between the young Lord and the former serv- ant, signed by both men. Adonai has inherited 27 acres of prime beachfront property, called the Beau Estate, ripe for development, which he says he will shortly put on the market for £22.5 million.
Cody meanwhile, was also left a stone carving of a Lingam, a Hindu representation of the phallus that symbolises the god Shiva.
Despite inheriting a fortune, Adonai said yesterday: ‘I have not ended up with the correct share.’ His main complaint is how long the case has taken while his main assets were tied up in the land, forcing him back to his former occupation of fisherman to provide for his family of seven children.
He said that if he had had access to funds he would have fought the case more vigorously.
He told this newspaper: ‘I’m not at all happy with the changes to the will. Previously I had everything. The will was what Lord Glenconner wanted and what he told me, and the family knew that.
‘ He wanted to leave a legacy behind. I’ve not ended up with the correct share.’ He maintains unfailing loyalty to Lord Glenconner, dubbed ‘The King of St Lucia’, whom he calls ‘Mr Tennant’.
He said: ‘I didn’t have the money to fight the proposals. If I’d had the money I’d have had four lawyers giving advice. In the end I just gave up, it was too much to fight them. Although I had a lot of support from the public.’
He added: ‘My upset is the way they [the family] treated me. I can’t say anything bad about Cody. But some of the family treated me very badly when Lord Glenconner was alive. When Mr Tennant was suffering with cancer I looked after him all the time. With the will, I wanted to preserve his legacy, so his name will live on here. ‘I hope to have a bust of him made and placed where he is buried. The first thing I will do when I get money is have that bust commissioned. It will be his legacy.’ Yesterday, Lord Glenconner’s 85- year- old widow told The Mail on Sunday: ‘ Everyone’s happy. Kent’s certainly not been done out of anything – I’d be pleased to be in his shoes.’ From her farmhouse home near the north Norfolk coast, Lady Glenconner added that the parcel of l and awarded to Adonai was ‘ the best one, because it’s the only one with a beach’. ‘Kent also had a great deal from my husband even before he died – two hotels and a lot of land,’ she said. ‘ He’s well- off compared to my children.
‘ I’m very fond of Kent and he looked after my husband very well and he was well-rewarded over the years with quite a portfolio.’
Also mentioned in the legal consent order was a watch which once belonged to Lady Avon, widow of former Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden, who was the godmother of Cody’s late father Charles Tennant. According to the document, the watch goes to Adonai – not Cody.
Lady Glenconner said: ‘ That’s very odd, because that has sentimental family value and carries the signature of Winston Churchill, who was Lady Avon’s uncle.’
She added: ‘Kent was very happy with what he got and so was Cody.’
Lord Glenconner’s home Glen House, perched between the Pitons, is now in ruins. His parties there were as celebrated as those he held in Mustique in the 1960s and 1970s.