Anthony Lugo-Sharpe

From beyond black stump via Buckingham Palace and billionaires’ butler to Rotorua bar manager

Anthony Lugo-Sharpe has poured G&Ts for the late Queen Mother.

He’s barbecued filet mignon for former US president Bill Clinton on a Caribbean island.

He’s been employed by American top league billionaires, worked on luxury liners and super yachts, recruited and trained staff for liners and an international hotel chain.  

Then there’s the line-up of celebs he’s been right hand man to, Lady GaGa, Madonna and Beyonce included.

That’s not name dropping, it’s simply the way Anthony’s life as personal butler to the world’s rich and famous has rolled.

Now he’s rolled into Rotorua where he’s managing the recently rebranded International Hotel Cocktail Lounge and Eatery, formerly Ponsonby Road, in Eat Streat.

It’s an astonishing career for a bloke raised on a 20,000 acre station deep in South Australia’s outback. It was so remote his primary schooling was with Australia’s Schoolroom of the Air which delivered his lessons over the radio waves.

Surely the last place on Earth you’d expect to be the breeding ground for the archetypal gentleman’s gentleman?

Not so, and there’s nothing archetypal about Anthony. He’s the antithesis of butlers as books, film and TV portray them; seen but not heard subservient fellows, as soberly dressed as Victorian undertakers. 

In contrast, Anthony is a great conversationalist and when we chat he’s wearing a bespoke tailored three piece suit. The only time he’s worn traditional garb for an in-house job was during his footman’s apprenticeship at Buckingham Palace.

The palace and Balmoral Castle were vital components of his one-on-one butler training with Josephine Ive, principal of Melbourne’s Magnums Butlers Academy, tutoring students in seven star luxury service. 

Early days

Naturally exemplary personal conduct’s a prime requirement for posts of the calibre Anthony’s held.

But he hasn’t always been a goody-goody. The first thing he tells us about himself is how, at 13, a Catholic boarding school expelled him for igniting a joint that “went off like an Atom bomb.” 

“One of the brothers dragged me out of there by my hair and the scruff of the neck.”

It was a planned strategy, Anthony wanted to live with his grandmother in Adelaide - she took him in.   

Outside school hours he worked as an apprentice chef until joining the Regency Park Community College for four years training in international culinary arts.  

His career began at Adelaide’s Hilton International. “It was an amazing place to learn every aspect of the hospitality industry, working up from bus boy and food and beverage manager to running Margaux on the Square, absolutely THE place to be in Adelaide.”

Seven years on he transferred to Melbourne’s grandest hotel, The Windsor, famous for its continuous high teas. Anthony’s a high tea aficionado.

“It‘s full of luscious delights with a glass of champagne of course, it’s always 2 o’clock somewhere in the world.”

Which raises the present hot debate of what’s spread first on scones, cream or jam? Anthony’s a jam man but with an individual twist. “I eat mine upside down to get both flavours right into my taste buds.”   

How butlering began 

He’d possibly have been at The Windsor forever had it not been for meeting Ive, who’d come to talk to staff. 

 “I was absolutely fascinated, asked lots of questions, she offered to train me to be a proper butler, I thought it was a joke and said ‘okay, not a problem’.  For the next three-and-a-half years I had one-on-one training in her home. It was really intensive, there’d be a knock on my door in the early hours and she’d be saying she wanted a cup of tea. I complained I was sleeping, she said ‘this is what happens when you’re a butler in the real world’ and it does.”

“She [Ive] is one of the greatest mentors to have, she taught me character building, how to have a sense of humour to get you through the day, learning to read people’s body language. Coming from the sticks she gave me the leverage of communication.”

Royal service

His sojourn at Buckingham Palace and Balmoral Castle rounded off his training. “I’d help serve the Queen, Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Mother, Prince Charles and Princess Di, all the senior royals, making sure everything was perfect.”

He adored the late Queen Mother. “She was an absolutely beautiful human being, it didn’t matter where she was at 10.30 every morning she had a G&T poured for her, the gin had to be Gordons.”

Personal attention to the royals’ requirements was tempered by mundane domestic duties. “Polishing silver was a 365 day-a-year job and to polish the dining tables you climbed onto them then went down on hands and knees, cloths in hand.”

 Royal service was an “an absolutely fantastic experience” which transitioned him through the doors of Victoria’s Government House. There he was employed as an under butler then butler until the travel bug bit.

 “I hit London in 1995, I wanted to see the places I’d learned about during my CB [radio] education as a child.”

Luxury on sea, sadness on land  

Back in the working world Anthony signed on with a luxury cruise line sailing out of Florida and Tahiti, Tahiti was his land base for two years. Initially a waiter he rose through the ranks and as the fleet grew he was transferred to Nice on the French Riviera to recruit staff from across the globe. “At one stage we have 47 different nationalities on the books.”

The premature deaths of his sister and a nephew returned him briefly to Australia.

Saddened and in need of a recharge, he headed for the Dominican Republic. He planned to stay a month but had barely unpacked when his life took another about turn.

“I was relaxing with a Margarita when someone from housekeeping came and said ‘Mr Anthony, Mrs Simon wants to meet you’. I said ‘I don’t know a Mrs Simon’ and went on drinking my Margarita. The next day there was a knock on the door, it was Mrs Simon, she said she’d heard I was a chef, that she needed me for a day as she was having 16 guests in her villa.

“I took the job not having a clue who the guests were. There I was cooking filet mignon on a barbecue when Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, [film star] George Hamilton and their wives walked around the corner. “All I could think was ‘I hope I don’t f*** this up’.

Presidential approval begins billionaire lifestyle

 Thankfully I had some great compliments. Mrs Simon pointed at me and said “Bill, [Clinton] can I take him home with me?’.”

The leader of the free world gave the Aussie the seal of approval.

“That’s how I came to be in Indiana USA, running the 34 homes they had across the States, overseeing a staff of 326. 

So who was this mysterious Mrs Simon?

The answer‘s Bren Simon, wife of one of American’s then mega billionaires, Melvin Simon (now deceased). 

When Anthony joined his household Simon owned the state’s Pacers basketball team and a movie production company. With his brother Herbert he co-founded America’s largest shopping mall conglomerate and the Simon Property Group.

When Anthony met the Simon duo they were bankrolling then vice president Al Gore’s presidential campaign.  

“They were an amazing family to work for but theirs was a crazy household as you’d expect from the creator of the Porky movies. Mr Simon would ride a Rolls Royce golf cart down the west wing of the house to breakfast. He had two puppies that he loved, he called them his little joys. They went everywhere with him, my job was to carry them.”

The couple were generous philanthropists. “They built a cancer hospital in Indiana, Mrs Simon was totally dedicated to charity work at home and in the Dominican Republic.” 

Anthony spent five years with them, travelling the world.

“It was a fantastic gig, a fantastic family but it was time for a change.”

Dodging bombings

He crossed the Atlantic to the yet unopened five star London Riverbank Plaza Hotel, employing house staff and writing their training manuals.

Job done he moved to a super yacht but almost didn’t make it up the gangway.

His London departure coincided with the Islamist terrorist bombings of tube stations and buses. That was July 7, 2005.

Anthony, who lived close to one of the bombing sites, had problems getting home to pack. “That experience was quite scary,” he says with, what for him, was an out of character old style butler understatement.

Candle empire founder’s factotum

The yacht he’d joined as chief steward cum butler was the plaything of Yankee Candles founder Mike Kittredge. The rags to riches  Kittredge and Anthony bonded.

As a birthday gift the mega billionaire offered him the chance to become his general factotum, based at his Massachusetts home. There was an add-on, that of protection officer for Kittredge’s 11-year-old son. Anthony had done similar work with the Simon family.

Earlier in his working life he was taught gun handling and general protection skills by California’s Carmel police.

He thrived with Kitttredge. “I felt my career was at its peak when I was with Mike, I learned all aspects of business from him as we travelled the world for ten years.”

Marriage, caring for celebrities

The pair had newly returned from a gruelling trip to China when Kittredge told him he looked in need of a night on the town.  To coin a hackneyed phrase it was a date with destiny. 

That night Anthony met his now husband Eduardo (Eddie) Lugo-Sharpe in a bar, they’ve been married 14 years.

“I resigned and took him to Australia to see my home country.” 

Back in Massachusetts they married, he considers the state his “belonging” place.

“Before leaving Australia my grandmother said ‘you don’t belong here, you need to find your belonging’. Massachusetts is that place, my spouse’s family are there.”

After his marriage celebrities became his clients.

“I worked as their house manager on fixed term contracts, they found me by word of mouth.” 

A chance meeting with Jack Chrysler Jnr, scion of New York’s art deco skyscraper family, led to time with him. Art Deco is another Anthony passion.  

The here and now   

In 2015 The Lugo-Sharpes came to New Zealand on vacation (Anthony’s word) and haven’t budged. 

“We fell in love with this country, it’s always been on my bucket list.”

For two years he ran a prominent Auckland businessman’s household affairs but found the Bay of Plenty lifestyle more appealing and relaxing.

Following last year’s lockdown he was appointed food and beverage manager at Rotorua’s Pullman Hotel. The owners of what was then named Ponsonby Road, Tim Smith and Tamati Coffey, enticed him away after a mutual friend introduced them.

“It was at the time of their rebranding, my role is to bring their sophisticated visions to life, bring this bar to where their expectations are.”

Despite Covid’s restrictions he continues to run his own global company Kingsman Luxury Concierge Services, its tagline: “delivering services beyond expectations”.  

One burning question remains – what are the super rich really like? 

Anthony dispels the notion they’re an arrogant bunch out of touch with reality.

“They’re still people, they have their trials and tribulations like everyone else. Other communities in the world don’t really understand what good people they are, the charitable work they do.

“My clients have always made me a part of the household family but there’s that fine line between being family and the butler, you don’t cross that line.”