Americans, Dinner Parties, and Renovation Extravaganzas: The Origins of Farmore Interiors

If you stumble into Farmore Interiors, you’ll find yourself lost in the clutter of couches and pillows and candles. The list of the store’s items and amenities could be endless. But beyond the array of furniture and interior design consultation hides a more exclusive “list,” one involving the growing American student population.

“It started 30 years ago as an interior design service,” said Juliet Rathbone, owner of Farmore. “I would go out to people’s houses during the day while the children were at school, and then in the evening, I would do the quotes and the invoices and the estimates.” 

As time passed, Rathbone decided to expand the business: “One day, when [the children] got slightly older, I was picking them up from school in town. I saw a little shop across the road come up for let and I just walked in on a whim and said, ‘I’ll take it.’”

“We used to do ball gowns and things for all the student balls,” Rathbone said, “and I also had a baby shop on Church Street next to Fisher and Donaldson. [...] But at that time, I had three children, three dogs, three businesses.”

Eventually, Rathbone consolidated her businesses into the Farmore brand. Now, it runs the majority of its operations on South Street, with an additional Farmore Home warehouse-style location. 

If you walk around Farmore, you’ll see the accumulation of Rathbone’s ventures. Baby clothes, toys, gifts, pillows, centrepieces, and Christmas decorations are combined, juxtaposing interior design with retail. From Rathbone’s view, the uncurated atmosphere makes the store feel like home. “We try to facilitate home through our renovations, but also just in the environment,” she said.

To achieve this, Rathbone has incorporated property management within renovation practices. In addition to caring for overseas golfers’ properties, Farmore has become globally recognised among enclaves of American families for student property management. “Say your parents decided while you were in second year to buy a flat and maybe let a couple of rooms out to your friends,” Rathbone explained, “We’d renovate it. [...] Then, when the owner’s children leave the flat, the parents tend to want to keep the flat, but they need some kind of revenue. So then we take it on and find somebody to rent.”

The dynamic created ‘The List’ in Farmore’s student operations. ‘The List’ is an exclusive and coveted organisation of student tenants in Farmore’s managed properties who benefit from a variety of ‘concierge’ style services. “We have a full team on hand: 24-hour plumbers [and] electricians, [that] are all [on] our own team,” Rathbone said.

Rathbone described property management for ‘The List’ to be much more involved than with Farmore’s golfer clients due to the high demands of students. “You just never know the next thing with the students. You could be having a really calm afternoon, and next thing the phone goes, ‘I've pushed the window out.’ So it’s [a lot of] damage limitation, communication, and organisation.”

There are other support services for members of ‘The List.’ Last year, Rathbone’s team organised the catering of a “huge Thanksgiving party” for parents and student-tenants. They also hand-deliver birthday cakes: “Even if it's a Sunday, we’ll knock on the door and deliver it from the parents and say, ‘This is from your mother,’” said Rathbone.

Beyond the more comprehensive amenities, Rathbone ensures that the students feel cared for: “If they need a private doctor, we’ll make sure that’s sorted out. They need a private dentist, or if they need to get somewhere, we’ll get them there. If they’re feeling unwell, we’ll make sure they're looked out for. If [they] just need somebody at the other end of the phone, we’re [there].”

Access to and knowledge of ‘The List’ is completely by word of mouth. Rathbone appreciates this style due to the detachment of communication in a digital age. In fact, the greater Farmore Interiors doesn’t even have a website. The majority of digital communications occur on the business’s Instagram and Facebook pages, the latter of which Rathbone describes as “poor because we never get around to it.”  

“I’m not about online or AI or robots,” Rathbone added. “I’m a lot about communicating and just being genuine.”

How exactly did this List come about? How did an interior designer evolve into the one-stop shop for American students’ needs? According to Rathbone, it all circles back to when Prince William and Princess Catherine were students. That was when ‘concierge’ style amenities and renovations for students began to take off.

“Before William and Kate came, I was asked by a family to do a full renovation on Howard Place opposite William’s flat. In it, there were five girls.” Rathbone said, “I’d done the sofas and furnishings for the flat William was renting. And that’s really when we kind of got into doing things for students, because before that, students would make do with the most crummy houses.”

Rathbone also explained that the rise in American students following William and Kate’s studies contributed to the establishment of ‘The List.’

“There were very few American students, pre-Kate and William,” she added, “It was mainly English and Scottish, and French. So it was just around that time [when Americans arrived] that things took off. I realised that when people were asking me to do [these] things, that we kind of turned it into a part of the business.”

Part of what Rathbone attributed to her success with American clientele is her own background. “I’m half Austrian, half American. So, I very much get that the American mind is very different from the UK mind. When a parent comes, I immediately know why they’re doing that, why they’re thinking that, why and how we can solve the problem, because I've grown up that way,” she said.

Overarching all business practices of Farmore, Rathbone emphasised customer experience. This value has become so deeply rooted that she has formed strong, long-lasting relationships with her clients. “We keep in touch with so many of them. They’ll tell me where they are or if they ever come back for a reunion. They always make sure they come in [the store]. One came in and brought her little son to see me the other day,” she said. 

Rathbone admires the level of comfort that her team has brought to clients. Combined with passion, she describes Farmore as “creating a space where you feel relaxed, happy, and comfortable. Not creating a space where somebody’s got Gucci to make it look good. It’s just creating that feeling of comfort.”

Illustration by Eloise Zhang